


Blue Thunder

by Zara_Zee



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Police, Crime Fighting, Drama & Romance, Explicit Language, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor misuse of prescription medication, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming, Set in 1980s, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:55:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4902853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zara_Zee/pseuds/Zara_Zee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen Ackles is an LAPD helicopter pilot. He’s also a cynical, troubled Vietnam veteran whose flashbacks and reckless ways mean he’s churning through partners too fast to count.  Nobody wants to work with him anymore.</p>
<p>Jared Padalecki is a young, idealistic police officer and due for his first promotion. He’s also an Out gay man at a time when the AIDS virus has just started to make headline news. He’s endured endless homophobic taunts and had other officers refuse to provide him with backup. Nobody wants to work with him.</p>
<p>When Jared is assigned to be Jensen’s new Observer, they're not sure which of them the partnership is supposed to be punishing, but the pair soon discover that they make a great team. And Jared thinks they could be something more if Jensen ever ventured out of the closet long enough for something more than a one night stand with a stranger.</p>
<p>When they’re selected to test pilot a state-of-the-art combat helicopter with cutting-edge surveillance capabilities, the pair unwittingly stumbles on sinister information about the government’s plans for the new helicopter. And suddenly, they’re not just fighting for their careers; they're fighting for their lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A New Partner

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I have borrowed the names and faces of certain actors without their knowledge or approval. Said actors belong to themselves and I have merely cast them in my fiction. Not a word of this is true; I’ve just got them playing parts.  
>  This story portrays a fictional version of the LAPD, a fictional government department and a fictional version of UCLA. The attitudes and behaviors of the people in these fictional versions should in no way be inferred as belonging to those in their real world counterparts. This is all pure make-believe and is written for fun, not profit.  
>  **Notes:** Any family members mentioned are strictly OCs. In this story the character of Jensen is ten years older than the character of Jared.  
>  Written for Livejournal's SPN-Cinema challenge.

 

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\--

 

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Jared Padalecki pulled up at the security booth in front of the brown brick building that housed the LAPD’s Air Support Division. He turned down his radio and gave his name and badge number to the guy in the booth.

The security guy was heavy set and looked close to retirement age and he eyed Jared suspiciously before checking his clipboard with a disgruntled air. Jared was apparently on the list, because he opened the boom gate with a sigh and waved Jared forward.

“Welcome to Air Support,” he said. “Flight crew’re on Level 3. Follow the signs and park in the marked bays only. Don’t park anywhere marked ‘reserved’.”

Jared followed his instructions and found an empty space for his silver Datsun.  He turned his radio up again and sat for a moment with the engine idling, taking deep, steadying breaths and listening to Michael Jackson’s _Billie Jean_ on the radio.

“I can do this,” he whispered to himself. “It’s going to be different this time.”

Jared had dreamed of becoming a police officer ever since he was a gangly eleven-year-old and a trio of San Antonio’s finest had come to talk to them in Middle School. Some of the other boys in his class had talked about how cool it would be to be able to tell everyone what to do and to shoot bad guys, but that wasn’t what had appealed to Jared. He wasn’t in it for power and glory; he truly wanted to protect and serve his community; to help keep the peace; to solve problems.

Only apparently _he’d_ become the problem and the 77th precinct had solved it by moving him to the Air Support Division. He’d been due a promotion and this was a sideways move. Jared clenched his teeth. He could see a lot of sideways moves stretching out ahead of him and all because his fellow officers were a bunch of homophobic dicks.

On the radio, _Billie Jean_ gave way to _Maneater_ and Jared groaned, because that’s what all his former work colleagues at the 77th had seemed to think he was; some kind of man-devouring pervert. They were afraid he might grope them in the locker room; that they might catch AIDS if they used the urinal after him.

Bastards. Jared gritted his teeth. He didn’t have AIDS.

When he’d first come to California for college back in ’76, he’d been looking forward to investigating the abundance of gay nightclubs that LA had to offer; to going home with a different guy each night and having mind-blowing sex.  His first day of college, he’d been handed a pamphlet about the rampant VD epidemic in the state and had decided that no glove, no love was probably a sensible personal policy. He’d lost a lot of potential hook ups because of that policy, but as it turned out that wasn’t such a big deal, because he’d also found out pretty quickly, that casual sex wasn’t really for him.   

A chocolate brown Caprice pulled up a few spaces away and Jared ran a hand through his slightly-longer-than-regulation hair and took a deep breath, before switching off the engine and getting out of his car.

He followed the other officers to the elevators and when they hit the button for the flight deck, he nodded.

“You joining Air Support?” said one of the guys.

“Yeah,” Jared stuck his hand out. “Padalecki.”

“Pada what?”

“Padalecki,” he repeated. “Jared.”

His fellow officers shook his hand and introduced themselves, welcoming him to Air Support and making jokes about his height. Jared figured rumors about his sexuality hadn’t made it to Air Support yet; he didn’t dare hope that attitudes in this division were simply more enlightened than he was used to.

Jared’s new colleagues even walked him to the office of Captain Jim Beaver, a slightly portly bearded man in his late fifties who looked like he’d be more at home in oil-stained overalls and a ballcap than he looked in a beige suit and blue-striped tie.  

“Welcome to Air Support, Son,” Beaver said, when Jared was seated opposite him in an uncomfortable brown vinyl chair. The office door was closed and the venetian blinds were adjusted for privacy. “In case you were wondering, I know all about your troubles at your old precinct.”

Jared’s stomach flip-flopped and he stared down at the cluttered desk, chewing at his lip.

“For the record,” Beaver said, “I don’t care what any of my officers do with their private parts, so long as they don’t do anything with ‘em during their shifts and they don’t fraternize with each other.  I don’t care what color you are, what sex you are or what sex you have. I care about your ability to do your job. We’re a team here; a family; and I don’t tolerate bigots.   You do your job, Son, ain’t no-one here gonna give you any grief, you have my word on that.”

“Yes, Sir,” Jared said. He had to admit, Captain Beaver’s speech had made him hopeful, but after his experiences at his old precinct he wasn’t going to be quick to judge the guys here.

At the 77th precinct, Jared’d had his locker glued shut, endured endless homophobic taunts and had other officers refuse to provide him with backup. Every time he’d walked into the locker room, everyone else had walked out, their lips curled in disgust. Just the thought that Beaver might be right, that his new colleagues might be friendly and treat him with respect, made Jared feel as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

“All right, then,” Captain Beaver said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “I got you paired with Ackles. He’s a Vietnam vet. Can be a little,” Beaver inclined his head and appeared to be searching for the right word, “a little _jumpy_. But he’s a good pilot. And a good officer. Mostly.”

Jared raised an eyebrow. “I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me, Sir,” he ventured.

“Don’t tell me,” Beaver said dryly, “you’re plannin’ on being a detective some day?”

He didn’t seem mad, but Jared hoped he hadn’t overstepped his bounds. “Yes, Sir,” he said. “I hope so.”

Captain Beaver sighed. “I suppose if you’re gonna be his partner, I should,” he trailed off with another sigh. “I mentioned Ackles was a little jumpy? Well he’s also cynical as hell, prone to angry outbursts and pretty Goddamn reckless. I can’t get anyone to work with him anymore and, well, seeing as how you were having the same problem back at your old precinct, I thought maybe you’d make a good team.”

Jared stared at Beaver’s slightly flushed face. The man appeared to be some combination of embarrassed and concerned and Jared realized that the old man genuinely liked this Ackles guy. Pairing him with Jared was a Hail Mary pass aimed at saving the man’s career. It seemed Jared was just having _his_ career saved on the other man’s coat-tails.  

“Okay,” he said. “When do I meet my new partner?”

\--

Jensen Ackles was standing in the middle of the locker room with his flight suit done up to his waist and a white tee-shirt covering his chest. His eyes were closed and his watch was counting down sixty seconds. His CO, back in ‘nam had once told him that if you really and truly genuinely went over the edge, the first thing to go would be your sense of time. So Jensen made sure that he could still tell what sixty seconds felt like, several times a day; his own quick and dirty version of a sanity check.

“Ackles,” Jim Beaver called and Jensen held up one finger.

If anyone other than Jim had been his Captain, Jensen would’ve been bounced from the force long ago. Luckily for Jensen, Jim Beaver had known him since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. He’d lived next door to the Ackles family back home in Texas and for some reason had taken it upon himself to fill the role that Jensen’s own father had mostly been too drunk to do.

Jensen opened his eyes just as the timer on his watch finished its countdown. He smiled and then looked up at his captain and a very tall young guy.

“What’s up, Sir?” Jensen figured it wouldn’t hurt to show some manners, given that he’d just been woefully insubordinate in front of company.

“New partner,” Jim said. “Ackles, Padalecki. Padalecki, Ackles.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” the tall guy grinned and stuck out a hand.

 Jensen stared at him and his fucking dimples, before turning back to Jim.

“What happened to Garcia?” he asked.

Pada…whatever dropped his hand, dimples disappearing and brow furrowing.

Jim rubbed at his chin. “Danay transferred to Day Shift, remember?”

Yeah. Jensen remembered.

He’d forgotten where he was on a flight last week, got a little caught up in his head, and…it hadn’t been dangerous, not really, but apparently he’d been flying far too low over the freeway and he’d said some shit that had really freaked Garcia out.  She’d taken a couple days off and when she’d come back she’d told him that she was going to transfer to days so that she could spend more time with her kids. _And get the Hell away from your damaged ass before you kill me_ , was implied rather than spoken out loud, but Jensen had heard it loud and clear.  It wasn’t the first time he’d been dumped by his partner, not by a long shot.

“Oh,” Jensen said lightly, shrugging into the arms of his flight suit. “Was that starting today?”

 Jim’s lips were firmly pressed together. He shook his head and then turned on his heel and strode out of the locker room.

“You’re just gonna dump Padawookie on me and run?”  Jensen called after him.

“You’re a big boy, Jensen, you’ll cope,” Jim called back.

Jensen sighed. “Outstanding.”

He glanced up at Padawookie, who was looking so wide-eyed and nervous that Jensen almost felt sorry for him.

“So, kid, you ever flown in a chopper before?”

Padawookie’s eyes got even bigger and more soulful looking.

“Not as such,” he said. “I’ve practiced in simulators and I’m a total tech geek.  I’ve got what it takes to be your Observer, Sir. I promise.”

Jensen raised an eyebrow. “I’m your partner, not your CO, so do not ‘sir’ me.”

Padawookie flicked him a salute. “Okay, Partner.”

Jensen grimaced. “Jensen,” he said. “You can call me Jensen.”

Padawookie grinned and stuck his hand out again and this time, Jensen shook it.

“Jared,” Padawookie said.

“What?” Jensen was a little distracted by how _big_ the man’s hands were.

 “My name. It’s Jared. Padalecki.”

“Pada…?”

“lecki. Padalecki. Jared.”

“Jared,” Jensen nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s go get our bird in the air.”

\--

Life, Jared decided was just unfair. Why couldn’t his pilot have been some squat, snub-nosed middle-aged man with a receding hairline, a beer gut and bad skin?

The last thing Jared needed was to have to spend his nights in close quarters with Air Support’s candidate for sexiest man alive. Whenever Jensen looked into his eyes, Jared had to think really hard about the way his grandma’s dentures flapped in and out of her mouth when she spoke, in order to avoid popping a boner.  How was he going to avoid making his crush obvious when he was destined to spend so many hours confined with Jensen in a small cockpit?

Oh God, Jared admonished himself. Do not think the word _cock_ pit. Do not think the word _joystick_. And stop thinking of him as _Jensen_. Sure, he’d been invited to call his partner by his first name, but Jared couldn’t help imagining himself groaning out the name in the throes of passion and he needed to steer clear of those kinds of thoughts.

_Officer Ackles, Officer Ackles_ , Jared repeated to himself over and over again. He was trying so hard to avoid watching Ackles’s ass as he strode ahead of Jared out onto the helipad that he bumped into one of the maintenance crew and dropped both his helmet and his papers.

“Shit!” he scrambled to pick up the papers before the rotors of half a dozen helicopters preparing to take off scattered them in the wind. 

The maintenance guy helped him collect everything. “You flyin’ with Ackles?” he said.

When Jared said that he was, the man shook his head and ran a hand across his floppy, greying moustache. “That guy should be grounded,” he said gruffly, his mouth pulling into a thin line. “Personally, I wouldn’t fly with him for a bull that pissed Jack Daniels.”

“Right,” Jared said, taking the last of the papers from the other man. He felt strangely protective of his new partner and wanted to say something to defend him, but for all he knew, the other man was absolutely right. “I’m sure we’ll be fine,” he ended up saying. “Sorry,” he waved the papers. “Thanks for helping me.”  

“Don’t mention it,” the guy said. “Oh, hey,” Jared turned back to face him. “At about 10.00 o’clock, ask him to show you Encino.” The guy winked and then turned away with a wave.

By the time Jared made it to their chopper, Ackles was already strapped in, with his helmet and his aviator sunglasses on.  As soon as Jared was strapped in too he began to push buttons and flick at levers, his feet pumping back and forth on the foot pedals.

“You all set?” he asked, as Jared juggled papers and adjusted his headset.

“Yes. Yes, Sir,” Jared said.

“You sure?”

“Yep.”

“Well, all right then,” Ackles reached out with his left hand and pulled the collective control up, putting the helicopter into the air.

Jared spent some time coming to grips with the radio he was responsible for operating, at the same time trying to ‘observe’ for Ackles.

“So, Padaleski,” Ackles said.

“Padalecki,” Jared interrupted.

“Right. What brings you to Air Support?”

Jared sucked in a breath. What should he tell his new partner? The whole truth? A part truth? Or some BS story?

He shrugged. “I’ve always been a tech nerd. And…I dunno, I kinda like the idea of being up here above it all. No guns, no kicking in doors, you know?”

“Uh huh,” Ackles didn’t quite roll his eyes, but Jared thought it was a close thing.

Jared pressed the binoculars to his eyes and gazed down at the bright lights of Los Angeles, the city that never sleeps, full of people scurrying around like ants in an ant colony. 

“What d’you think they’re all doing down there?” he speculated idly.

Ackles harrumphed. “According to the latest statistics about one million seven hundred and seventy five thousand of them are fucking like bunnies.”

“Oh,” Jared said awkwardly. The absolute last thing he wanted to think about right here, right now was sex.

Ackles flashed him a sideways grin and then his tongue darted out and licked quickly at his lips. “The rest of ‘em are just watching Laverne and Shirley,” he said.

Jared laughed, more to relieve the tension than because the comment was funny. He refocused on the view through his binoculars and then frowned when an activity caught his attention.

“I’ve got a black guy in a beanie down there,” he said, “Looks like he’s selling dope out of a van.”

“Huh,” Ackles said. “Is it a red beanie?”

Jared nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Ackles took the helicopter past at a distance, not pausing or swooping in lower. “He’s one of ours,” he said. “Narcotics division. Undercover. It should be mentioned in the daily brief,” he nodded at the bundle of papers still sitting on Jared’s lap.

“Oh,” Jared let the binoculars fall around his neck and began to scramble through the papers. He was interrupted by a call. “Air 12, Air 12 we have a 2-11 in progress at the liquor store at Burbank and Vineland. Suspect is a Caucasian male in an orange shirt and a cowboy hat.”

Ackles snorted. “Subtle.”

“He’s armed,” the dispatcher continued, “and he has a hostage.”

Jared looked at Ackles. “Well?” Ackles said. “What are you waiting for? Call it in.”

Jared did just that and received a smile and a nod from Ackles, which made him feel warm all over.

“Is that our guy?” Jared dropped the binoculars and pointed. “See him? He just shoved that black woman over and ran across the road!”

“I see him,” Ackles said, picking up the suspect in the helicopter’s headlight as the man narrowly avoided being hit by a white Ford Mustang.

The guy saw the helicopter and fled toward a nearby junkyard. He leapt up onto a dumpster and began to scale the fence.

“Hit ‘im with the searchlight,” Ackles said, so Jared did.

“Man,” Ackles chuckled, as the suspect flipped over the fence and landed on his ass. “Guy looks like a rodeo clown. Whatever happened to inconspicuous?”

Two police cruisers screeched to a stop in front of the shop that’d just been held up.

“Air Support to Ground Patrol,” Jared said into the loud hailer, “Your guy’s gone over the fence into the junkyard.”

Ackles took the chopper down lower and Jared pinned the suspect with the search light. When the clown pulled a handgun and fired at them, Jared ducked instinctively and swore out loud. “He’s firing at us!”

Ackles chuckled. “Welcome to Air Support,” he said.

One of the ground patrol officers appeared on top of the fence and the suspect spotted him, turning and pointing his gun. Ackles swore and immediately swooped down, so that the chopper was right on top of the suspect.

“Gonna dust ‘im,” he explained to Jared, and that really was an appropriate term, Jared thought, because the helicopter kicked up so much dust that the suspect was immediately lost in a storm of sand and grit. He dropped his gun and put his hands over his face, struggling to keep the choking dust out of his eyes, nose and mouth. Ackles then moved the chopper back so that the ground patrol officer, who had now successfully navigated his way over the fence, could approach the suspect. Jared watched as he kicked the gun away and then tackled the man to the ground, pinning his arms behind him and handcuffing him, his lips moving all the while. Jared was too far away to make out what he was saying, but he assumed he was reading him his rights.

“And our work here is done,” Ackles said, giving the ground patrol officer a lazy salute and pulling the helicopter away from the scene.

The sun had set while they’d been responding to the last call and Ackles took off his sunglasses and put them in the door panel pocket, before giving Jared a brief smile. To Jared, his partner appeared calm, relaxed and serene. He was clearly at home in the helicopter cabin and Jared really wanted to know why others in Air Support thought he should be grounded. He side-eyed the other man and chewed at his bottom lip.

“What?” Ackles said.

“I was just wondering,” Jared said. “Earlier, in the locker room, with the watch. What was that?”

Ackles’s face tightened, almost imperceptibly, and he busied himself checking gauges and fiddling with buttons and levers. Jared thought his partner wasn’t going to answer, but then he made a very obvious effort to calm himself again and half turned to Jared.

“It’s a sort of a … test,” he said.

“Of what?”

Ackles rubbed a hand up and down his thigh and Jared tracked the movement. Ackles was nervous and trying not to show it.

“You’ve heard about me, right?  The burnout? The crazy vet? A few sandwiches short of a picnic? The elevator doesn’t go up to the top floor anymore?”

Jared’s stomach tightened painfully and his intake of breath was audible in the confines of the cabin.

“Captain Beaver might’ve mentioned that no-one wants to fly with you anymore,” he admitted.

“And you’re not curious as to why that is?”

Jared met the challenge in Ackles’s eyes. “I’m very curious,” he said, “but I figure you’ll tell me when I’ve earned your trust, so I’m happy to wait.”

Ackles broke eye contact and looked back out at the empty sky in front of them.

Jared barely dared to breathe.

“Okay,” Ackles said after a moment. “The thing with the watch, it’s a sort of a sanity test. If you get too caught up in your own head, you start to lose time. Can’t keep track of it, you know. I just…before I fly, and any time I’m feeling…tense…I just like to check that I know the difference between 60 seconds and 60 minutes. That’s all.”

Jared nodded. “Okay. Makes sense.”

Ackles turned and stared at him for a moment and then smirked. “So what about you?” he said. “What did you do to end up stuck with the guy nobody wants to fly with?”

Jared really should’ve been expecting the question, but he wasn’t, at all, and he tensed up completely.

And then his stomach rumbled loudly. Ackles laughed, but it sounded a little strained.

“Don’t tell me you’re hungry already?” he said.

“Yeah,” Jared latched onto the topic like the lifeline it was. He patted his stomach. “This monster’s a bottomless pit.”

“Oh God,” Ackles groaned. “I get it now. You’re gassy aren’t you? No-one wanted to be stuck in a cruiser with you after your six burritos for lunch. I’m right aren’t I?”

Jared shrugged. “I guess you’ll find out after we stop for supper.”

Ackles slapped a hand against his forehead. “Note to self. Buy air freshener during supper break.”

The next couple of hours passed uneventfully. They chatted about football and basketball and the fact that they were both originally from Texas.

“Man, I miss Texan barbecue,” Jared said wistfully.

“I know right?” Ackles nodded sagely. “Californians _think_ they can grill, but, man, some of the crap they try to pass off as sauces…don’t even get me started.” He sighed. “You just can’t get that sweet, smoky brisket taste outside of Texas.”

“And speaking of sauces, what’s with the Tex-mex out here?” Jared said. “The sauces are terrible, there’s no melted cheese on anything and a lot of places don’t even have queso!”

Ackles was nodding again. “Can’t get breakfast tacos either,” he said mournfully.

“Or kolaches,” Jared said with a sigh. “I’ve got my fridge full of Lone Star Beer, and Bluebell ice-cream in my freezer, but, man, I miss home so much sometimes.”

“I hear you,” Ackles said. “So what brought you to La La land?” 

“I wanted to go to college out of state,” Jared shrugged. “Texas was a little too conservative for me. How about you?”

Ackles rubbed at the back of his neck. “Same as you. I came out here for college, mostly because Jim was here. We were neighbors, back home in Texas when I was a kid and he was always good to me, so,” Ackles shrugged. “Seemed like the thing to do.”

“Captain Beaver mentioned that you were in Vietnam,” Jared said carefully.

Ackles side-eyed him briefly and then nodded. “Yep.”

“You joined up after college?”

“Yeah. I went to Officer Candidates School, then Basic training, then Flight training. Caught the tail end of the war.”

“No offense,” Jared said, “but you don’t look old enough to have been in Vietnam.”

Ackles raised an eyebrow. “I’m thirty-six.”

Jared’s mouth fell open. His partner looked like an underwear model. He couldn’t possibly be only a few years shy of forty. “No way,” he said. “There’s no way you’re ten years older than me!”

Ackles smirked. “What can I say? I’m like a fine wine. I get better every year.”

Jared really couldn’t argue with that.

Jensen flew their patrol zone, crossing from one sector to another in a pattern that he was clearly familiar with. Jared observed the city below them through the binoculars, reporting a couple of abandoned cars, one which didn’t even have plates, and guiding a ground patrol crew to some kind of gang dispute which looked like it was about to get ugly.  

Jensen looked at his watch. “We’re not far from Van Nuys Airport,” he said. “You wanna take a Code 7?”

Jared grinned and rubbed at his belly. “I never say no to food.”

Ackles cleared his throat and it might have just been Jared’s imagination, but he thought the older man looked a little flushed as he mumbled something about there being a Subway and a Chinese place not far from the airport.

Jared called in to Central, letting them know that Air 12 was taking a meal break and then his stomach rumbled loudly. “Man, I’m starved,” he said. “Can’t wait to get a foot-long sandwich in me! What about you, Jensen? You want a foot long or six inches?”

“I, uh,” Jensen rubbed the back of his neck and then cleared his throat again. “Think I’ll have Chinese.”

\--

It was a little before 10.00pm when they took off again from Van Nuys airport, pleasantly stuffed full of Chinese dumplings, because Ackles had been strangely intent on avoiding Subway and Jared would eat anything.  “Oh, hey,” Jared said, as they took to the air. “I was told to ask you about Encino at around ten o’clock?”

Ackles chuckled. “Oh yeah. Encino. Now that was something I couldn’t do with Garcia.”

Jared frowned. “Why not?”

But Ackles just smirked and told him that he’d see soon enough.

Jared sat tight, intrigued but not worried. When Ackles began to lower the chopper over an eight story condo complex in Encino, he shot the older man a bemused expression.

“Why are we here?” he asked. “It’s way out of our patrol area.”

“We’re here for the view,” Ackles replied.

Jared raised his eyebrows and looked down at the complex below. It was a nice complex of condominiums, with impressive palm-tree lined gardens and a huge swimming pool, but really, the view wasn’t worth a special trip.

“I don’t get it,” he told Ackles.

Ackles dropped the helicopter a little lower and hovered. “Third window from the right,” he said. “Go ahead and look with the binoculars.”

Jared peered through the glasses and almost dropped them immediately.

“Jesus Christ, Ackles! There’s a naked woman in there doing yoga!”

Ackles grinned. “I know, right?”

“You know? _You know_? Then why the hell are we spying on her? That’s fucked up, Ackles, that’s a total breach of privacy! We’re being peeping toms, Ackles, and that’s…it’s fucking illegal! Get us out of here!”

“Jared?” Ackles was peering at him with genuine concern. “Breathe, buddy. It’s okay. She knows we’re here. She’s a total exhibitionist, likes to put on a show.”

“Yeah,” Jared was trying really hard not to picture his mama’s reaction if she heard he’d been kicked off the force for spying on a naked woman in her bedroom. “Well what about the guy in the next condo? He’s staring out his window at us and he’s not looking too happy. A lot of people don’t like the LAPD hovering outside their bedroom window late at night, you know.”

“Alright, alright, I’m getting us outta here,” Ackles pulled the chopper away. “Man,” he said, “what red-blooded American boy is gonna miss the opportunity for a free peep show?”

Jared scowled at him.

“First I get a female Observer,” Ackles muttered, “then I get a Boy Scout from Texas who’s scared of what his mama might think.”

“I’m not scared of my mama,” Jared said. “I’m just not interested.”

The moment the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to take them back and he knew his sudden panic was showing on his face.

Ackles looked puzzled for a moment and then his eyes widened. “Oh,” he said.

Jared prepared himself for disgust and derision. Instead, Ackles lowered his eyes and chewed on his bottom lip.  When he spoke again, his voice was gentle. “Not interested in being a dick or not interested in someone who doesn’t have a dick?”

Jared’s throat almost closed up in panic and he couldn’t speak. He stared at Ackles and tried to focus on his breathing.

“It’s okay, Jared,” Ackles said soothingly. “I don’t care if you’re gay. I…it’s not a problem.”

Jared gulped in air and then smiled shakily. “It was a problem at my last precinct.”

Ackles grinned. “Yeah, well, the 77th is full of assholes, everybody knows that. You’re my partner, kiddo, and I got your back, no matter what.”

Jared was so relieved he had to fight back tears. “Thank you,” he said, his voice thick with gratitude. “Can you do me one favor, though?”

“It’s okay,” Jensen said, “I won’t tell anyone.”

Jared nodded. “Thanks, but I was going to say, please don’t call me _kiddo_. Not unless you want me calling you _old man_.”

Ackles scrunched up his nose and Jared tried not to see it as totally adorable.

“Deal,” Ackles said.

The radio chose that moment to squawk to life. “All units in the vicinity, we have a rape in progress, 87-92 Lindum Road.”   

“Isn’t that near where we saw that abandoned brown Chevy earlier?” Jared said. “The one without plates?”

Ackles’s face was stony as he pulled away. “Call it in, Jared.”

Lindum Road was a well-to-do area. The houses were big, well set back from the street, and most had swimming pools and pool houses. The scene when they arrived at 87-92 was chaotic.

There were two ground patrol cruisers parked in the driveway of a big house and they were chasing two men who were fleeing the scene on foot, carrying a briefcase. The men were firing at the police and the police were returning fire and Jared wasn’t sure who he should shine the searchlight on first. Then one of the suspects was shot in the back and was flung into the swimming pool, which immediately began to turn red.

“Oh God,” Jared swallowed.

“Oh yeah, he’s bought it,” Ackles said. “Get the searchlight on the other guy.”

Jared complied quickly, pausing when the searchlight caught the victim, who was slumped beside her car, clutching her abdomen and breathing heavily.

“Huh,” he said. “Didn’t the call say this was a rape?”

“Yeah,” Ackles said. “Looks more like a stabbing and a robbery. Get Central to send an ambulance and then get the searchlight on the other guy.”

The other suspect was trying to climb the fence and when the searchlight landed on him he swung around and began firing randomly. A single shot from one of the ground patrol officers brought him to the ground, his arms flung out like Jesus on the cross. The briefcase flew from his hands as he fell, papers spilling out and flying around like Fall leaves in the wind when the briefcase burst open in mid-air.

Suddenly, the helicopter started to spiral downwards, losing altitude and Jared looked quickly at Ackles. The pilot’s face was glistening with sweat and his eyes were distant and vacant. 

“Sir?” Jared barely managed to keep the alarm from his voice. “Were you hit?”

He put a hand to Ackles’s arm and the man flinched away violently.

“What’s wrong?” Jared said. “Is the chopper okay? Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Ackles cleared his throat and steadied the chopper. “Yeah, I’m fine. Hope that ambulance gets here soon. The vic’s not looking... Oh fuck.”

Jared followed his gaze and saw the brown Chevy that he’d called in as abandoned earlier, rammed into the back of the victim’s car.

Jared met his partner’s eyes. “Guess it wasn’t abandoned after all,” he said, his voice bleak. “Did we… if we’d been in our patrol zone instead of…”

“Probably wouldn’t have made any difference,” Ackles said. “We wouldn’t have been over this sector, even if we’d been in the zone.”

Jared nodded. “I hope she makes it.”

\--

When they landed back at the Air Support Heliport, Dispatch checked them back in and then told them that the old man wanted to see them, right away.

Jared’s eyes widened immediately and Jensen tried to look reassuring, even though he was feeling a little like he’d just been summoned to the Principal’s office himself.

Captain Beaver got up from his desk when they walked into his office. He shut the door behind them and glared out of his office windows at all of the personnel sitting out in the open plan office, staring in as if they’d really like to settle back with popcorn and watch the show.

Giving the team a final scowl he turned back to face Jensen, who took one look at his Captain’s face and immediately stood to attention. Beside him, Jensen could feel Jared tensing.

Captain Beaver stalked back to his side of the desk and picked up a brown folder which he slapped against his hand for emphasis.

“Do you boys know what I hate most about this job?” he asked.

“No, Sir,” Jared said.

Jensen picked a spot on the wall behind Jim and stared at it. He knew the question was rhetorical, so he didn’t bother to answer.

“Taking complaints from Joe Public,” Captain Beaver said. “I particularly hate it when some rich suit with an expensive condo calls to complain that one of my helicopters was hovering outside his bedroom window, disturbing his sleep.  I sure hope I don’t get a phone call from the Chief asking me to explain why one of my helicopters was outside of its patrol zone, hovering around bedroom windows in Encino, while Commissioner Loretta Devine was getting stabbed in the driveway of her very own home, which coincidentally, is deep _within_ the patrol zone of the aforementioned helicopter.”

He threw the file he’d been holding down on his desk and it flopped open, showing a picture of the victim, attached to a crime report.

“Devine, Lindum Road?” Jensen said. “That’s her?”

Jim sat down, drew a tired hand over his face and then nodded. “Commissioner of the Mayor’s special task force on urban violence. A little touch of irony for you there, Jensen. I know you like that kind of thing.”

Jensen wrinkled his nose.  “How is she?”

“She was stabbed, Jensen. She’s in intensive care, and with a wound like that to her abdomen,” Jim shook his head. “It’s not looking good. She was stabbed in the stomach by one of the rapists.”

“No, Sir,” Jensen shook his head. “There wasn’t any rape. This was a straight forward assault and robbery.”

“Yeah? Well that’s not what they’re calling it Downtown. Assault, battery and attempted rape is the official line.”

Jensen frowned. “Well that’s just plain wrong. That abandoned car we called in? The Chevy? That was a stakeout.”

Captain Beaver cut him off. “It was a makeout, Jensen. A couple of kids who couldn’t afford a No-tell Motel. Look, son, the case is closed. We’ve got a couple of toe-tags down in the morgue. It’s over.”

“Really?” Jensen scowled. “So it doesn’t bother you that the Chevy had no tags? That it was sitting out the front of Devine’s place for hours before it rammed her car? That rapists don’t travel in pairs? That—”

“I’ll tell you what bothers me,” Jim stood up, knuckled fists resting on his desk and his voice loud and angry, “It bothers me that some bright-eyed sonofabitch might get the idea to ask what you were doing five miles outta your assigned patrol zone, that’s what bothers me!”

“Sir,” Jared said.

Jim didn’t break eye contact with Jensen.  “If I’m talkin’ to you Padalecki, I’ll be lookin’ at you,” he growled.

“Yessir, sorry, Sir,” Jared said. “I just wanted to say that it was my fault, Sir. People were talking about Encino and I was curious, so I asked Officer Ackles to show me what they were talking about.”

Captain Beaver finally broke eye contact with Jensen and turned to glower at Jared. “You think I haven’t heard about that silly twit out in Encino? I’d already had twenty years’ experience in this outfit when your idea of a good time was watching Sesame Street in your diapers while sucking on your thumb!”

The image made Jensen snigger, which brought him back under Jim’s spotlight. “And in case you’ve forgotten, Officer Ackles, there are people in this community who do not like police officers. And they especially don’t like the idea of police helicopters flying over their homes and peeking in their windows. Something like this could cause a scandal so big it’d burn my whole damn division, so I gotta be seen to take a stand,” Jim put his hands in his pockets and looked from Jensen to Jared and then back again. He blew out air and then shook his head. “You’re grounded,” he said. “Both of you.”

“Grounded?” Jensen gaped.

“Yeah,” Jim said. “I gotta find somewhere to hide you both for a couple weeks until all this blows over,” he looked up at Jared. “Get outta here, Padalecki. You’re dismissed.”

“Yessir,” Jared turned quickly and headed for the door.

“Oh and Padalecki?”

Jared turned.

“Get a Goddamn haircut.”

Jared blinked. “Yessir.”

“Oh no,” Jim said, when Jensen made to follow his partner. “We ain’t finished yet, Jensen.”

Jim waited until Jared was well away from his office and then said, “How’s he workin’ out?”

“Good,” Jensen said, leaning back against Jim’s closed office door and crossing his ankles. “I take it you knew?”

“Knew what?”

Jensen bit down on his bottom lip. “He came out to me. Didn’t mean to, actually pretty near had a panic attack over it when he realized he’d just outed himself.”

“So what the hell did you take him to that peep show over in Encino for, then?”

Jensen shook his head. “It happened after that. Actually, that’s pretty much what triggered it. For the record, the kid damn near read me the riot act for breaching a citizen’s privacy. He’s one of the good guys, Jim.”

Jim sat back down at his desk and folded his hands as if in prayer. “And how are _you_ feeling?” he asked.

“Fine,” Jensen said. 

“Did you, uh, reciprocate?”

Jensen looked hard at the man who was not only his boss, but his surrogate father too.  “What do you mean?”

Jim fidgeted uncomfortably. “When Padalecki told you…you know. Did you—”

Jensen straightened up. “There’s my private life,” he said, “and then there’s my working life and I would’ve thought that you of all people would be encouraging me to keep them separate.”

Jim rolled his eyes. “I’m not suggesting you date him, just talk to him. Let him in a little.”

Jensen stared at Jim, his expression stony. “Was there anything else, Sir?”

Jim sighed and lowered his head. “Yes, actually. The, uh, Review Board wants to have you up for Psychiatric re-evaluation.”

“Oh come on,” Jensen tipped his head back in frustration.

“Don’t tell me you’re surprised, Jensen. What did you expect after your wig out last week?”

Jensen shook his head. “Look, I’m sorry about that, okay, but I don’t need some damn head shrink trying to—”

“It’s outta my hands,” Jim interrupted. “Look, son, I know every instinct you got is telling you not to talk about what’s going on inside that melon of yours, but you’re messed up and those instincts of yours are just plain wrong. You gotta let it out. You gotta let someone in.”

 “Yessir,” Jensen said insincerely. “Can I go now?”

Jim told him that he was dismissed and Jensen managed to resist the temptation to slam his office door when he left. He stalked from the offices down into the car park with an impressive scowl that kept everyone at bay and he didn’t start to relax until he slid behind the wheel of his baby, a sleek black 1967 Chevrolet Impala. He tore out of the parking lot like he had hellhounds on his tail, shot past the security booth, and then slammed the accelerator down and fishtailed up the road at speed, trying desperately to burn all the adrenalin out of his system. If he didn’t get rid of all the anger and turmoil churning through his body, Jensen knew from bitter experience that he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Not without a few too many shots of Jack Daniels, anyway, and if there was one thing in life that truly terrified Jensen, it was the prospect that he might end up a drunk, just like his old man.


	2. An old nemisis

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 Jensen screeched to a halt outside his home, a cabin-style house in the Mount Washington area of LA.

Once inside, he dropped his keys on the side table, and then pushed the play button on his answering machine.

There was a message from his sister telling him that she and her husband were back from their holiday in Florida and did he get the postcard they’d sent? Jensen smiled to himself as he absently went through his mail; bills, bills and more bills. And a postcard from Key West.  The next two messages were both from Danneel, complaining that she hadn’t heard from him in nearly a month and she was getting really sick of him ignoring her messages. Jensen winced and then went and got himself a Lone Star beer, opening it with the bottle opener that was sitting on his kitchen bench and then tipping his head back and downing half of the bottle in one long gulp.

Danneel had been his best friend since college. He’d been deep in denial back then, still counting his blessings that he didn’t seem to be as sex crazy as all his buddies; relieved that he didn’t seem to feel the same desperate pressure to lose his virginity that all the other freshmen did. Even though he’d taken to drinking whiskey and beer like a fish took to water, even though he’d pretty much stopped going to Church on a Sunday, he figured that the whole ‘no premarital sex’ thing, was the one value of his parents’ that he was getting right. Whenever he allowed himself to be peer-pressured into making out with a girl it felt wrong and Jensen had just assumed that was because sex before marriage was a sin and he was a good Christian boy who wanted to make his mama proud.

Until Danneel.

Danneel who hadn’t been quite as drunk as he’d thought she’d been. Danneel who’d noticed that he wasn’t really into it. Danneel who’d sat up straight on his lap, palmed his barely hard dick, stared straight through his eyes into his soul and said, “Omigod. You’re gay.”

He’d ended up with his head between his knees, breathing into a paper bag while Danneel rubbed his back soothingly and told him that it was okay.

Jensen had never named the sin that he knew hid deep within his soul, had never acknowledged that when he jerked off imagining Piper Laurie and Paul Newman making out in The Hustler, it wasn’t really Piper Laurie who was turning him on.  Danneel had helped him, if not come to terms with his sexuality, then at least to acknowledge it. She played the part of his girlfriend during college to help him keep his secret and she was still willing to play that part, whenever he needed an official date for something.

Jensen wasn’t exactly out; conservative, religious parents and six years in the military kept him firmly in the closet. But Jim knew. And Danneel, of course. The only others who knew were the various guys who Jensen had exchanged hurried hand jobs and sloppy blowjobs with in public restrooms and sex-on-premises venues.

The thing was, Danneel took her best friend duties pretty seriously and she knew that when he stopped taking and returning her calls it was because things weren’t going well for him. Jensen groaned. It was too late to call her now; she had a kid and it wasn’t fair to call at this time of night, no matter what Danneel said in her last angry message. But he’d make sure he called her in the morning. Maybe even arrange to meet up on the weekend. She’d like that.

Jensen took his gun out of its holster and put it in the drawer of his lamp table.

There was a takeout container of chow mien in the fridge that had only been there since last Friday, and Jensen was just thinking that he’d heat that up for his supper before heading to bed when a bright set of headlights swung across his living room window and a car pulled to a stop right in front of his front door. The dog next door began to bark.

Shit. Jensen yanked open the lamp table drawer and pulled out his gun. Had he locked the front door? Jensen couldn’t remember. He crept silently toward it and then froze when the door knob began to twist slowly. The door swung open gently and a bulky shape pushed its way inside. Jensen raised his gun. The lumpy shadowy-shape pushed the door shut and Jensen flicked on the lamp and yelled, “Freeze asshole!”

Beside the door Danneel gasped and clutched her sleeping son closer to her chest.

“Jesus Christ, Danni!” Jensen said lowering his gun and hiding it behind his back. “I thought you were a burglar! I could’ve _shot_ you both!”

Danneel was wearing a red trench coat, belted at the waist, and a black beret. Her eight year old son, Timmy, was clinging to her front like a baby monkey and he had an old blue blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

Danni rolled her eyes at Jensen. “How many burglars come through the front door with a key, Bozo?”

She may have had a point, but Jensen wasn’t willing to concede it. “Yeah, well,” he said, “You scared the shit outta me.”

“Sorry,” Danni’s bottom lip dropped. “Could you maybe put the gun away now, Jenny -bean?”

Jensen scowled. “Do not call me that,” he returned the gun to the lamp drawer. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Here, hold him,” Danni passed Jensen her sleeping son. “I need my blender. I left it here that time Chris was in town with his band and you had that party.”

“Oh yeah,” Jensen nodded. “You were making margaritas,” he frowned. “That was months ago. Why do you suddenly need your blender at 2.00 o’clock in the morning?”

Danni was already on her way into the kitchen. “Well, you see, Jensen, you have this problem. You don’t pick up the damn phone.”

Jensen put Timmy down on the sofa. He covered him with a throw rug and then frowned. Kid must be deaf to have slept through all the ruckus he and Danneel had been making.

“Are you going to come?” Danni asked.

Jensen went and leaned in the doorway in between the living room and the kitchen. “To what?”

“Chad and Sophia’s anniversary party.”

Jensen frowned. “I thought they broke up.”

“Yeah they did. And then they got back together again. The party’s this Friday.”

Jensen closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his forehead. Sophia and Danneel had been friends since college, and Jensen knew Sophia and her husband Chad pretty well. The couple had been breaking up dramatically and then getting back together again, ever since college. They’d gotten married about five years back, but it hadn’t changed anything. They’d separated and then got back together again twice—or three times now, Jensen supposed, in the time that they’d been married. Jensen actually wasn’t sure they could legitimately claim to have been married five years, given the amount of that time they’d been separated. Also? Chad was kind of a dick. When he’d had too much to drink (something that happened far too often) he’d hit on any woman in the room. He’d even hit on Jensen once; told him that he had real pretty cock-sucking lips and that if Jensen ever wanted to blow him, he wouldn’t say no. Jensen had leaned in close and then explained to Chad that he also had a real firing gun and a permit to carry concealed.

“It’s okay,” Danneel said softly. “You don’t have to come. It’s not like you promised to be my date or anything.”

Jensen opened his eyes and stared at her.

“I wasn’t being sarcastic,” she said. “I know how you feel about Chad, so I figured you probably wouldn’t come. I was just hoping,” she shrugged and then sighed. “We haven’t spent a lot of time together lately and you’ve been,” she trailed off and then pursed her lips and fixed him with a steely expression. “Jensen, I know you’ve got issues; hell you’ve got _annual subscriptions_ ; and I’d really like to help you,” Danni reached up and put her hands on Jensen’s shoulders. “Just remember, Jenny-bean, you can run, but you can’t hide.”

“Joe Lewis,” Jensen said. “Very good.”

Danni sighed again and then bit at her bottom lip. “Sooner or later, we’re gonna talk. I love you too much to lose you; you know that.”

Jensen slipped his arms around Danneel’s waist and pulled her close, burying his nose in her hair and inhaling the scent of her apricot shampoo. “I love you too,” he said.

Jensen stood wrapped around his best friend, listening to her heartbeat for a minute or two before pulling back. “I got a new partner today,” he said, surprising himself. He hadn’t planned on telling her about the debacle with Garcia, or about Jared.

Danni looked at him cautiously. “Good or bad?”

Jensen inclined his head. “Good I think. His name’s Jared. He used to work over at the 77th precinct, transferred to us because the assholes over there didn’t want to work with a fag.”

Danni made a small hurt noise and put a hand over her lips. “Oh, Jen,” she said. “Is he okay?”

Jensen couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. I mean, I’m sure there’s damage, you know, under the surface. But he seems like a cool dude.”

“Yeah?” Danni nudged Jensen’s shoulder. “Is he cute?”

“ _Danni_!”

“Well is he?”

Jensen rolled his eyes and then rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “He’s very tall. Big hands. Big feet.”

“Big cock?”

Jensen’s jaw dropped. “Really, Danni?”

Danni shrugged, completely unrepentant. “Oh come on, don’t try telling me you haven’t been speculating. So where’s my blender?”

Jensen pointed to the cupboard where he’d stashed the blender after the party, and Danni took it with a whoop of triumph. She turned to Jensen and looked at him sternly. “We’re gonna catch up on the weekend,” she said, “and you’re gonna talk to me about what’s going on in that head of yours, okay?”

“Yes, mom,” Jensen teased.

Danni rolled her eyes. “Could you carry Timmy out to the car for me?”

Jensen picked up the sleeping boy and followed Danneel out to her white Toyota Celica. She opened the back door and Jensen placed the sleeping boy gently onto the back seat.

Timmy sat up abruptly with a grin. “Hiya, Uncle Jensen,” he said.

Jensen threw his head back and laughed. “Hiya, you little faker,” he ruffled the boy’s hair and then stood up and shut the car door.

Danni wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “You take care of yourself, all right? And if you get lucky with your new partner,” Danni waggled her eyebrows, “then you call me straight away so that I can live through you vicariously.”

“Goodbye Danni,” Jensen waved her off and then went back into the house and heated up the left over Chinese for his supper.

He flicked the TV on while he ate and caught a news report about the ‘attempted rape’ of Commissioner Loretta Devine, who was still in a critical condition in hospital. “We still don’t have anything on the rapists,” the Chief of Police told a reporter. “They had no identification on them, but they were probably Latin American and almost certainly illegal aliens.”

Jensen frowned. Why were they pushing that ‘attempted rape’ line so hard? Even a rookie should’ve been able to see that this was a carefully planned assault and robbery. The attackers had targeted the councilor’s briefcase; they’d taken it in the driveway of her home and run off with it. Surely, if the plan had been to rape her, they would have bundled her into her house, or the back of her car, or even dragged her to the banana loungers? But they didn’t. They stabbed her, grabbed her briefcase and ran.  Jensen had a brief memory flash of the attacker who’d been trying to climb over the fence getting shot; of him falling off the fence; of papers flying everywhere as he dropped the briefcase. Jensen frowned again and ran a hand over his chin. Maybe some of those papers were still out there. Maybe it would be worthwhile to go and check. Maybe he might learn what the powers that be were trying to cover up.

Jensen pushed back from the table, got his jacket and his gun and went out to the car.

\--

Jensen was half way to Commissioner Devine’s house when a newsreader interrupted the radio station’s broadcast of _Sweet Home Alabama_ to announce solemnly that Commissioner Devine died of her stab wounds at 3.36am, without ever regaining consciousness. “A good woman,” the newsreader said, “and close confidant of Mayor Steven Williams, Ms Devine was well-respected by both the Latino and African American communities which made up the majority of her constituents. She will be sorely missed.”

“Goddamn it,” Jensen muttered under his breath.

When he pulled up out the front of Devine’s residence there was no police tape in evidence. No sign, in fact, that this had been the scene of a homicide not too many hours ago. “Oh yeah,” Jensen muttered to himself. “That’s not suspicious at all.”

He chewed at his bottom lip for a moment and then got out of the car and approached the high, spiked, brick and wrought-iron fence. He took his jacket off and threw it over the iron palings before vaulting over it. Taking out a flashlight, he began to look around; first around the miraculously clean pool which had been pink with spilled blood not so long ago, and then around the area where assailant number two had been shot. Jensen shone the flashlight on the ground, on the fence, and finally up into the trees, where he spotted a ragged-looking piece of white paper plastered against a leafy branch.

Jensen climbed up onto the fence and pulled the piece of paper down. It was torn and worn through in some areas where it had obviously gotten damp, but Jensen could still make out that it was a page of hastily scribbled hand-written notes. Unfortunately, it was written in Spanish. The only word Jensen could understand was THOR, although why Commissioner Devine had written the name of a Norse God in capital letters, he couldn’t even begin to guess. Jensen pocketed the piece of paper and then went back to his car.

When he pulled up outside his house, Jensen sat for a moment contemplating what he should do next. Maybe he could ask Garcia to translate it for him? He knew she was pissed at him for the, you know, loony tunes stunt he’d pulled the other week, but she liked him too. He didn’t think she’d refuse to help.

Somewhere close by a car engine backfired and suddenly Jensen’s heart was racing. He couldn’t breathe, his palms were sweaty and he could feel beads of moisture running down his face too.

“Shit. Shit,” Jensen pushed his seat back and leaned as far forward as he could, trying not to hyperventilate. “I’m not there, I’m not there.” Jensen’s head felt like it was swarming with bees and his chest hurt so badly it felt like he was having a heart attack.

“Just a panic attack,” he told himself. Again and again. “Not there, not dying. Just a car backfiring. Stupid fuckin’ trigger. Get a grip Ackles.”

Jensen hated psychologists, hating going to therapy, because real men shouldn’t need to. A Marine should be able to tough it out.  Both of those thoughts were bullshit and he knew it, but they were deeply ingrained. At least the psychologist he’d seen under sufferance had taught him how to pull himself out of a panic attack. It was hard and it took time, but being aware of what was happening and having the tools to combat the symptoms had been a big help.

The sky was starting to get light by the time Jensen was able to get out of the car. He headed straight for the Jack Daniels and poured himself half a tumbler with shaking hands. He downed it quickly, relishing the burn, and then poured himself the same again. It was enough to quiet the bees is his head and Jensen staggered to his bedroom, kicked off his shoes and crawled, fully dressed, under the covers. It still took him almost an hour to fall asleep and when he finally did, he was plunged straight into all his worst nightmares.

\--

Jensen woke up to the sight of sunlight streaming through a gap in his curtains and the sound of his pager beeping shrilly.

He folded an arm over his face and groaned.

The pager stopped and Jensen got up. He used the john and then showered, standing under the steam with his eyes closed until he started to feel a little closer to human. He didn’t bother to shave.

Once he was dressed—blue jeans, a light-grey Henley and an olive plaid over-shirt—he took a look at his beeper. It had gone off again while he was in the shower and it was Jim trying to get hold of him. Big surprise.  Jensen went and made himself coffee. Not until he’d downed half a cup of strong black caffeine did he pick up the telephone and dial Jim’s direct line.

“Goddamn it, Ackles!” Jim shouted at him. “I’ve been trying to get you all morning! Why don’t you answer your fuckin’ beeper!”

Jensen sucked in air. He really wasn’t in the mood for this shit. “Is that right?” he said. “Well how about this? How about the next time I’m suspended, so is my fuckin’ beeper!”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone and then Jim said, “Feel better now?”

“Yeah,” Jensen fired back, “actually, I do.” He ran a hand over his face and breathed out slowly. “Sorry, Jim. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Then get your ass down her pronto, Son. Got some suits here who want you back on flight duty.”

\--

Jensen went in dressed just as he was because technically he worked nightshift and it was only midday.

Jim was waiting for him in the parking lot, standing and chatting to two men in grey suits, one of whom was smoking. Jim excused himself as soon as he saw Jensen’s impala and hurried across.

“Jesus, Jensen, did you have to dress like a hillbilly?” he grouched when Jensen got out of the car.

Jensen shrugged. “I’m off-duty.”

“Yeah. Well. You’ve just been assigned to special detail,” Jim put an arm around Jensen’s shoulders and guided him toward the two suits.

“This is Mr Frederic Lehne and Mr Sterling Brown from Washington. This is Jensen Ackles, my best pilot.”

There was a round of handshakes and then Lehne said, “I’m glad we found you in time, Ackles, we’re due out at the Weapons Testing Range in two hours and it’ll take us that long to get there.”

Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Weapons testing?”

“Yeah,” Lehne gestured toward a nearby van and the group started to head toward it. “Everything I’m about to tell you is highly classified,” Lehne said. “You don’t discuss it with anybody, you understand?”

“Uh huh,” Jensen said.

“We’re testing a new helicopter prototype. We’ve got our own pilot, but your city’s been chosen as the operational testing area and your mayor is very anxious that his people participate.”

“Ours is not to reason why,” Brown said with a smile that Jensen found rather unsettling, “ours is just to submit to the whims and fancies of uptight local politicians, am I right?”

Jensen gave him a tight insincere smile and then looked at Jim with a question in his eyes.  Jim and Mayor Steve Williams were good friends and Jensen had always found the mayor to be pragmatic and down-to-Earth. If Williams wanted someone he knew and trusted to pilot this prototype, then there was a damn good reason for it.

Lehne guided everyone into the steel-grey van and once they were all inside a uniformed officer slid the door shut.

Jensen dosed quietly in his seat as they headed out to Pinkville, the Weapons Testing Range and he startled when someone tapped his shoulder.

“Easy there, solider,’ Brown drawled, proffering a packet of Carltons. “Just wanted to see if you wanted a smoke? Jason, was it?”

“No and no,” Jensen shook his head. “My name’s Jensen not Jason and I don’t smoke.”

“Jensen, right,” Both Brown and Lehne lit up and Jensen frowned. Great. Nothing he loathed more than being trapped in a small space with cigarette smokers.

Brown sucked hard on his cigarette and then blew smoke in Jensen’s direction. “Real Hollywood name you got there, _Jensen_ ,” he said.

Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Least I ain’t named after a brand of cigarettes _Sterling_.”

Brown laughed. “What can I say? I’m a special blend.”

Lehne cleared his throat. “So, Jensen, I understand you were in ‘nam?”

“That’s right,” Jensen tried to inject a truckload of finality into his tone. He looked out the window and hoped Lehne would get the message

“Two tours, was it?” Lehne persisted.

“Just one.”

“One combat tour?”

Jensen made a conscious effort to relax his muscles. “Only six months was combat. After the ceasefire I was part of the Truce Observation Force and then I took part in Operation Frequent Wind,” he cleared his throat and decided to try a more direct approach to changing the subject. “You gonna tell us about this special detail?”

Lehne was silent for a moment and then he said, “You know we’ve got the Olympics coming up here next year?”

Jensen rolled his eyes. “I don’t live under a rock, kinda hard to miss the preparations. We’re already having regular drills.”

“And they’re needed,” Brown said. “For a few short weeks the attention of the world is gonna be focused on this town and every nutcase and terrorist with a pipe bomb and a cause is already drooling about the worldwide audience they’d get if they blew this thing up. And that’s what this special detail’s all about; the potential for catastrophe. The last thing we want is a Munich-style massacre; some crazy communist trying to strike a blow against capitalism.”

“Huh,” Jensen inclined his head. “So…you’re talking about crowd control, from the air?”

“Booyah!” Brown clapped his hands slowly. “Give that man a cigar.”

Jensen narrowed his eyes and then glanced at Jim again. Sterling Brown was getting under his skin. There was something about him that just rubbed Jensen’s fur the wrong way.

“It’s been tried before, you know,” he said shortly. “Didn’t work out so good.”

“Oh yeah? Where was that?”

“Vietnam.”

“Right,” Brown drawled the word. “Well we’ve added a few new wrinkles to that.”

“Uh huh,” Jensen screw up his nose. “Such as?”

Lehne stared at him until it started to feel uncomfortable and then smiled a disconcerting smile. “Oh, you’ll see, Jensen, you’ll see.”

\--

Pinkville was teeming with people, and judging by the number of parked coaches, they’d been brought in by the busload. The place was crawling with military personnel and guarded by heavily armed MPs and there was a huge set of steel bleachers set up in front of a mock, film-lot-style town, which was peopled by three-dimensional plastic cut outs and had car and truck bodies strategically placed on the side of its one main road.   

As Jensen and his companions began to climb the bleachers to their seats at the top, Jensen rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin and then addressed himself to Lehne.

“You say this thing has anti-terrorist capabilities. Are you saying it’s armed?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Lehne pulled his own pack of Carltons out of his jacket pocket and lit up.

Jensen frowned. “I thought it was illegal to arm police helicopters?”

“Well, now,” Brown said, “that would depend on the circumstances, wouldn’t it?”

Jensen wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. America was supposed to be the land of the free; a staunch advocate for human rights and civil liberties. Protecting America’s political ideologies while also protecting it from terrorists, was a challenge; a difficult balancing act, and Jensen suspected that the government was about to step security up a notch, at the expense of some civil liberties.

“People aren’t gonna like this,” he said, turning to Jim and shaking his head.

Jim wasn’t looking though; too busy staring out at the horizon. “You hear that?” he said. “I think it’s coming.”

Jensen stood beside him with a hand on his brow to shield his eyes from the sun.

“Oh yeah,” he breathed as the chopper came into view. “She’s beautiful. What do they call her?”

Lehne chuckled and looked back over his shoulder at Jensen. “It’s a special helicopter,” he said, “so somebody hung a nickname on it. It’s called Blue Thunder.”

\--

Blue Thunder was black and she was all angles. Almost rectangular in shape, she was sleek and streamlined and something about her reminded Jensen of a dragonfly. Her blades thrummed as she approached and the sunlight glinted off her side and Jensen sat down heavily into the seat he’d been directed to and stared up at her as she made her way toward him. He may, possibly, have been a little in love.

“Alrighty, gentlemen, take your seats please,” said a sergeant holding a microphone. “Thank you all for coming out today to see our magnificent lady in action. I’m Sergeant Charles Whitfield and before we get to the demonstration, I’m here to tell you a little about Blue Thunder,” he paused and gazed out over the assembled crowd, his eyes meeting Jensen’s briefly. “Blue Thunder is one thick-skinned lady,” he continued. “She has one inch thick Norad NATO armor, which not even armor-piercing .50 calibre ammunition will be able to penetrate. Your terrorists will need a rocket launcher or a fighter jet to take out this lady,” Whitfield paused again to let that sink in and Jensen shuffled in his seat, folding his arms across his chest and crossing his feet at the ankles. “Speaking of fire power,” Whitfield spoke into the microphone again, “Blue Thunder has a forward-mounted, 20mm electric cannon with six barrels that can fire 4000 rounds of ammo per minute, and a chain-gun in her nose capable of dealing out precise firepower. And that, gentlemen, is one hell of a shit-storm in anyone’s language. ” He paused again. “Blue Thunder is also a full surveillance platform, with video, infra-red, and audio capabilities, and she has external audio pickups capable of hearing a mouse fart at two thousand feet. She also has access to almost any computer database in the world,” there was a lot of excited murmuring at that and Jensen understood why the security agencies had such a hard-on for this chopper, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but think of all the ways she could be misused. “Our lady also has as a ‘whisper mode’” Whitfield continued, “which cancels a lot of the noise from the rotor blades and enables her to operate in almost complete silence, and she has a turbine boost for the two turbines, to give her extra power.”

Jensen watched as Blue Thunder flew overhead, made a loop and then headed back out to the horizon again. Sergeant Whitfield, meanwhile, drew everybody’s attention down to the street mock-up below.  Some of the car bodies below had been painted white and some had been painted black. Similarly some of the cut-outs of people were red and some were white. Lehne leaned in toward Jensen and explained that the white dummies were the civilians; the innocent bystanders, and the red ones were the terrorists.  

“All right, gentlemen,” Whitfield said. “Y’all sit back and watch while the lady struts her stuff. The objective here is for our pilot to knock out the red dummies and the black cars, while leaving the white dummies and cars untouched.”

Beside Jensen, Lehne nodded. “In a riot situation we want to be able to get the bad guys, while protecting the innocents.”

Jensen watched as Blue Thunder screamed in overhead and then suddenly her guns were blazing. Black cars erupted in balls of fire and smoke, wheels and hubcaps rolled away from the wrecks, red dummies were torn apart, their heads blown off, their chests obliterated. Miraculously, not a single white car or dummy was touched.

“Oh my God,” Jensen said.

Lehne grinned. “Impressive isn’t it. Of course, that kind of firepower wouldn’t be used unless our worst case scenario came to pass, like armed insurrection. But it’s comforting to know you’ve got it on tap, am I right?”

Jensen merely raised an eyebrow.

“Gentlemen if I may have your attention again,” Sergeant Whitfield said. “The sheer firepower of the electric cannon is extraordinary, but in this next demonstration, you’ll notice the very selective nature of the firing. This is not a strafing run where you pepper the whole street; this little lady picks her targets carefully.”

Blue Thunder had flown off toward the horizon after her last demonstration and Jensen watched as she flew back toward the hastily-reassembled mock street. As soon as she was close enough, Blue Thunder began firing her nose-cannon, and Jensen had to agree that the shooting was both fast and precise; although occasionally not precise enough.

“You see that?” Brown said, when Blue Thunder finished her run and took off for the horizon again. “All of the red dummies are blown to Hell!”

“Yeah,” Jensen nodded. “And a few of the white ones too.”

On Jensen’s other side, Lehne shrugged. “There’s one dead civilian for every ten terrorists killed. That’s an acceptable ratio.”

Jensen raised an eyebrow and then turned to Jim, who was sitting behind him. “Unless you’re one of the dead civilians,” he said, almost under his breath.

“All right,” Sergeant Whitfield spoke into the microphone again. “Last pass, gentlemen. Anybody wanna bet on the school bus?”

Once again, Blue Thunder screamed overhead, headed straight for the mock-street. Once again, she took out a bunch of terrorist dummies and black vehicles, but this time she took out a cluster of dummy children as well, and Jensen winced, his hand going to cover his mouth.

Blue Thunder headed back out to the far horizon and Jensen frowned as he watched a school bus winched into position.

“We haven’t told our pilot everything about this school bus,” Sergeant Whitfield said. “Let’s just see if he can figure out what’s wrong with it.”

From where he was sitting, Jensen could see a whole bunch of white dummy children sitting in the bus. Suddenly, a bunch of red dummies sprang up on the seat behind each child, and Blue Thunder opened fire. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the precision run they’d obviously been hoping for, because by the time the barrage of gunfire was finished the bus was blown half in two and had there been real people inside, everyone would’ve been dead or very seriously injured.

“Oh shit,” Jensen wasn’t sure whether to gasp in horror or laugh. He glanced at Jim, who just shook his head. To add insult to injury, a group of white dummy children appeared abruptly from behind the school bus and Blue Thunder’s pilot was so surprised by their appearance that he blew them all away.

By now, Jensen was openly laughing. The demonstration had proved that Blue Thunder was up to the challenge; unfortunately the same couldn’t be said for whoever they had piloting the helicopter.

“And that concludes our demonstration,” Sergeant Whitfield said, a little stiffly, Jensen thought. “If you’d all like to come down below we’ll take a closer look, and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.”

Jensen made his way down from the scaffolding and over toward where Blue Thunder was now parked on the ground. He walked beside Jim, following behind Lehne and Brown and he heard Lehne call out, “Excellent shooting, Colonel, truly first class.”

“Oh excellent was it?” he heard a familiar nasally voice reply. “The Goddamn gun jammed again, made me mess up several shots. I nearly killed the lot of you on that last pass. You tell Ordinance from me that if it happens again, I’ll slice and carve and tear at them in ways they can’t even imagine; until there’s nothing left of them.”

Jensen stopped walking and swallowed hard.

“Jensen?” Jim put a hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”

Jensen nodded. “Yeah. Just, uh, someone I wasn’t expecting to see again.”

Jim inclined his head toward the chopper. “You and the Colonel know each other?”

“Yeah. We served together in the pits of Hell aka Vietnam. Bastard tried to have me court-martialed once.”

The Colonel was now heading Jensen’s way, flanked by Brown and Lehne.

“Well, well, well,” the Colonel said, staring straight at Jensen. “Look what we have here.”

“Colonal Heyerdahl, this is Captain Jim Beaver of the Air Support Division,” the two men shook hands, “and Jensen Ackles. Jensen’s going to do the actual testing over the city.”

Jensen nodded at Heyerdahl, his hands firmly clasped behind his back and his expression grim.

“Chris,” he said. “Finally made Colonel, I see.”

Heyerdahl’s smile was smarmy. “You know how it goes, Jensen,” he said. “If you’re a nice guy, nice things happen to you.”

Jensen bit down on the urge to scoff disbelievingly. “I’ll try to remember that,” he said.

Over by the chopper, Sergeant Whitfield was inviting people to step up for a closer look and to ask him questions. Jensen nodded at Heyerdahl again, and then stepped around him and headed straight for Sergeant Whitfield. Jim followed.

As Jensen walked away he heard Heyerdahl ask Lehne how they’d ended up with him.

“He was assigned to us,” Lehne said. “Him and his observer. By order of Mayor Steven Williams.” The distaste in his tone was obvious.

“He’s totally unsuitable,’ Heyerdahl said. “And he’s damn lucky he didn’t end up court-martialed during the war.”

Jensen glanced at Jim whose lips were drawn into a thin line.

“So, Whitfield,” Jensen slapped the sergeant on the shoulder. “What can you tell me about these top drawer surveillance capabilities?”

Whitfield brightened considerably. “That’s the really exciting thing about this bird,” he said. “Firepower is all well and good but this baby’s surveillance capabilities are what will stop any terrorists. See that there? That’s your TV camera, with a hundred to one zoom lens and this here is your heat-sensitive infra-red filter.”

Jensen opened his mouth to ask a question, but a hand on his shoulder silenced him.

“We could’ve used this in ‘nam,” Heyerdahl said, his voice grating on Jensen’s every nerve.

“Could’ve used something,” Jensen muttered, trying to stay focused on the instrumentation that Whitfield was now talking to Jim about.

“Tell me, Ackles, do you think you can fly it?”

Jensen turned to face Heyerdahl and smiled, or at least his lips turned upwards, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “ _You_ flew it,” he said pointedly.   

Heyerdahl laughed, fake and nasally, and then shook his head. “You really are something else, Ackles. But I have to tell you, after everything that happened during the war, I’m really not sure you’re up to this,” he ran a hand across his chin. “I tell you what, I’ll check out your capabilities tomorrow. We’ll meet at your Air Support base, twelve o’clock sharp, and I’ll put you through your paces. See if you’ve got what it takes.” He patted Jensen on the shoulder again and sauntered away, before turning and making the shape of a gun with his thumb and forefinger and miming firing at Jensen. “Catch you later, sport,” he said.

Every muscle in Jensen’s body was locked up tight and his hands were balled into fists.

Of all the people who could’ve been involved with this project, why did it have to be the man he hated more than anyone else on the planet? Jensen forced himself to relax and when he was finally able to focus again, Jim was watching him carefully.

“Well,” Jim said, turning to look at Heyerdahl’s retreating back, “irritating little mother-fucker, ain’t he?”

Jensen couldn’t agree more.


	3. Going Down

[ ](http://s51.photobucket.com/user/zarazee71/media/Blue%20Thunder%20Art%20by%20cassiopeia7/03_going-down_zpslm5rxc7d.png.html)

 It was gone midnight when Jared got home from his first day on the job at Air Support and he was both tired and wired.

He checked his answering machine for messages—there was one from his mom asking how his first day had been and asking him to call her back in the morning—and then he grilled himself a steak, baked a potato and tossed a quick salad. He drank a can of Lone Star Beer while he prepared his food and a second can while he ate.

What was he going to tell his mom?

In some ways, his first day had been awesome. Jensen was really cool. And Jared liked being up in the chopper. He hadn’t enjoyed seeing Councilor Devine get stabbed. He wouldn’t wish serious injury on anyone, but he had a lot of respect for Councilor Devine and he hoped that she would recover. She was a Democrat and very liberal; a staunch supporter of civil rights, gay rights and an outspoken feminist too. It would be a sad day for her constituents if she didn’t make it.

Jared was also a little embarrassed that he’d managed to out himself to Jensen and then have a panic attack over it, but Jensen had been kind and understanding and hadn’t treated Jared any differently at all. Then, of course, they’d messed up. Or to be strictly accurate, Jensen had messed up and now they were grounded. Jared frowned. What did a flight observer do if he couldn’t actually fly? What did a pilot do?

Jared cleared his dishes away and went to bed, and if he jerked off into a wad of Kleenexes picturing big full lips and bright green eyes, well, nobody ever needed to know.

\--

Jared woke up to his pager beeping. He called in and was told by the officer who managed the duty roster that Captain Beaver had asked her to tell him that he didn’t need to come in today, but that he’d be back on flight duty tomorrow, on a special assignment.

“Special assignment?” Jared said. “What does that mean?”

“Beats me, Sugar,” said the Duty Roster Officer. “Just make sure you show up at twelve o’clock sharp.”

Jared spent the day doing household chores and really wished that he had Jensen’s telephone number so that he could call him and see if he knew what was going on with this special assignment.

By the evening he was restless and horny. It had been far too long since he’d gotten any action that wasn’t delivered by his own right hand; given all the tension at his old precinct he’d been downright reluctant to go anywhere near a gay bar for months, let alone a sex-on-premises venue. But he didn’t work with those assholes anymore and his current colleagues seemed a lot more tolerant. Still, it didn’t hurt to be careful.  The bigger gay clubs, like Paradise and Revolvers out in West Hollywood, and the well-known SOPVs were the focus of a lot of police attention since the AIDS epidemic became front page news; there were both drive-bys and the occasional raid. But if he went down to Studio City there was a cowboy-themed gay bar where he’d be very unlikely to run into anybody on the job.

Cowboy Country was an SOPV that had been around since the 60s. There was line dancing and karaoke downstairs, but the club had a quiet area upstairs called The Loft that contained thirty or so cubicles where you could take somebody for a quick, anonymous fuck. Jared liked a proper bed, time, privacy and a name if he was going to fuck somebody, though, so he usually just settled for a blow job.

It had been a really long time since somebody had sucked Jared’s dick.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Jared changed into a more suitable outfit, grabbed his keys and headed out. He parked his car a couple of streets away from the bar and joined the line to get in. Once inside, he grabbed himself a beer and then steered his way through lines of sweaty, bare-chested dancers and ascended the stair case, two wooden steps at a time.

Jared was tall, broad and muscular and the trousers he was wearing were so tight they may as well have been spray-painted on; they didn’t leave much to the imagination and it didn’t take Jared long to find a twink who was desperate to get his mouth on Jared’s cock. If said twink just so happened to have short light brown hair and greenish eyes, well, that was just a happy coincidence.

There were half a dozen cubicles free and Jared headed toward the nearest one, twink in tow. The cubicles in The Loft weren’t very big, maybe a little bigger than the changing rooms in a store; and each one contained a vinyl bench, more or less big enough to fuck on, so long as you didn’t want to stretch out. The cubicles had swinging saloon-style doors, which all but the very shortest men could see over. Jared, at 6ft4 had no trouble seeing the action going on in the cubicles that they passed. He’d almost reached his destination when a sinful moan in a very familiar tone attracted his attention.

Jared stopped so fast that the twink actually crashed into the back of him.

Sitting on a red vinyl bench in a cubicle, with his back against the wall and his pants around his ankles, was none other than his new partner, Jensen Ackles. Kneeling at his feet was a leather-clad bear of a man who was sucking down Jensen’s dick like it was his favorite flavor milkshake.

“ _Jensen_?” Jared said.

 Jensen’s glazed eyes roved over him sightlessly and Jared frowned.

“Jensen?”

He got no response from Jensen, but the bear pulled off of Jensen and glared up at Jared.

“Do you have a problem, mister?” he said in a far more high-pitched voice than Jared had been expecting.

Jensen whined at the lack of warm mouth on his dick and Jared reluctantly shook his head. “No. No problem.”

“He’s _fine_ ,” the twink said, tugging on his hand. “Just busy gettin’ his brain sucked out his dick. C’mon, man, so I can do the same to you.”

Jared let the twink propel him into the next cubicle. He sat down on the bench and watched with hooded eyes as the twink dropped to his knees and reached for his zipper. Jared’s cock was still soft when the twink took it out, but it soon hardened under his skilled touch. He looked up at Jared from beneath his lashes and then licked his lips before sucking Jared’s dick into his mouth and tonguing gently at the soft mushroom head. Things went quickly after that. It had been a long time for Jared and the knowledge that Jensen was right next door sent him over the edge fast. The twink jerked himself off while deep-throating Jared and they parted ways amicably.

When Jared came out of the stall he glanced into Jensen’s cubicle. There was no sign of the bear, but Jensen was still sitting slumped against the wall, with his jeans pulled up, but open, and his eyes closed.

“Jensen?”

Jensen’s eyes fluttered open, but couldn’t seem to focus.

Jared went inside the cubicle and squatted in front of him, resting his hands on the older man’s knees. “Are you okay, man?”

Jensen blinked and looked down at him. “J’rd? What’r you doin’ here? Where’d Looks-like-Tarzan-sounds-like-Jane go?”

“Are you okay?” Jared persisted.

“Yeah,” Jensen began to push himself to his feet. Jared rose with him and when Jensen staggered slightly and fell against him, Jared gathered him into his arms.

“Woah, buddy,” he said. “How much’ve you had to drink?”

Jensen straightened up and fastened his pants. “Not much. Three shots of Tequila. You know. Dutch courage.”

Jared frowned. Jensen needed to get liquored up to get his dick sucked?

Jensen put a hand to his head. “Dude. Dizzy spell. Must’ve stood up too quick.”

Jared inclined his head to one side and stared at Jensen. His partner was experiencing drowsiness, confusion, impaired coordination and dizziness. Huh.

Jared gripped his upper arms and forced Jensen to look at him. “What have you taken?”

“What?” Jensen pulled away. “Nothing,” he frowned. “Just my meds. It was a shit of a day and… they’re just for, you know, not for every day. Just if I feel…” Jensen trailed off and listed dangerously again. Jared swung an arm around his shoulders. “Okay, let’s get you out of here. Please tell me you didn’t drive?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Jensen said tightly, with a pout that Jared would’ve found adorable in other circumstances.

“What are you on?” he asked as they made their way slowly through the club.

Jensen scowled. “That’s kind of personal.”

Jared pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Mixing prescription meds and alcohol can be a pretty bad idea, Jensen. I need to know whether I’m taking you home, or to the ER.”

Jensen sighed. “Ativan. One milligram tablets. I took two. And I’m not going to the ER,” he tried to pull away. “I’ll just go get a cab.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Jared said. “You can barely stay upright.”

To Jared’s relief, Jensen didn’t resist when he propelled him down the street to where his car was parked.

“That was pretty stupid, you know,” he said, as he opened the passenger side door and helped Jensen get in, “Mixing tranqs and alcohol is dangerous, man, it can kill you.”

“I only had _three_ tequila shots,” Jensen mumbled.

“It’s not worth the risk” Jared lectured. “And besides, it left you so out of it, that guy you were with, or, hell, any other random guy who came along, could’ve just turned you around and fucked you bare and unprepped.”

Jensen shrugged.

Jared took his time walking around the car and getting behind the wheel in an attempt to calm himself down. It didn’t work. In fact, by the time he opened the driver’s side door, Jared was winding up to give Jensen a real piece of his mind. He got in the car and slammed the door shut and Jensen recoiled so visibly, that Jared rethought the wisdom of yelling at him.

“Look,” he said, trying to keep his voice gentle, “it’s not the seventies any more, man. Safe sex isn’t just about avoiding a nasty rash and a trip to the clinic for some antibiotic cream. It’s about not dying.”

Jensen nodded, from his position pressed up against the far door. He looked like he was fervently playing ‘anywhere but here’ in his head. Jared sighed and started the car.

It wasn’t until they were a few miles down the road that Jensen spoke again. “You know yesterday when you, you know, _admitted_ ….and I didn’t tell you, you know, about me?”

As sentences went it wasn’t a particularly comprehensible one, but Jared knew what Jensen was getting at.

“You want to know if I’m pissed that you didn’t come out to me, after I came out to you?”

“Are you?” Jensen still wasn’t looking at him.

“No. How are you feeling now?”

“I’m fine, Jared. Just a bit…spacey.”

There was silence for a few more miles and then Jensen said, “This isn’t the way home. I live in Mount Washington.”

“Well that’s good to know, but I live in Burbank and that’s closer.”

“We’ve gotta be at work by midday.”

“Right. But work’s closer to where you live. I’ll drop you home on the way in. You’ll have enough time to shower and change and make it to work on time.”

“But—”

“No arguments, Jensen. You’re coming home with me.”

The silence was so dense that Jared had to take his eyes off the road to look at Jensen.

“I’m not gonna let you fuck me,” Jensen said.

Jared wanted to pound his head against the steering wheel. “Good,” he said. “Because I was planning on making you sleep on the sofa. I don’t fuck drug-affected guys who use rough sex as a form of self-flagellation.”

The temperature in the car dropped about twenty degrees and Jensen didn’t say another word the entire way home, just sat staring out the side window.

Jared’s apartment wasn’t very large. It only had one bedroom (although his sofa was big and comfortable) and he would’ve liked a yard; maybe even a couple of dogs. But it would do for now, despite the burnt-orange and harvest-gold kitchen, avocado shag-pile carpet and mission brown woodwork. 

“Damn,” Jensen said as he surveyed the living room and the kitchen just beyond it. “You _sure_ it ain’t still the seventies?”

“Shut up,” Jared grumbled. “The rent’s cheap.”

He went to the linen closet and pulled out his spare quilt, which he thrust into Jensen’s arms. “Here. I’m gonna have to get you one of the pillows off my bed. Hang on a sec.”

When he returned with the pillow, Jensen was sitting on the sofa hugging the quilt.

“So, uh, thanks,” Jensen said. “For, you know.”

Jared smiled at him. “Not a problem, man. You’re my partner; I’ve got your back.”

Jensen nodded thoughtfully.

“So, uh, bathroom’s through there,” Jared pointed. “I’ll leave a spare toothbrush out for you. And, uh, I can lend you something different to sleep in if you want?”

“S’fine. I’ll just sleep in my tee-shirt,” Jensen rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I’m really sorry about this, Jared. I swear I’m not usually this pathetic, you just caught me on a bad day.”

Jared sat down beside him on the sofa. “You mentioned it being a bad day earlier. Has that got something to do with the special assignment we’ve been given?”

Jensen nodded. “Yeah. We’ve been asked to test fly a prototype of a special helicopter over the city. I found out today that the guy who’s been the test pilot up until now is an old nemesis of mine.”

Jared stared at him and then snorted. “Nemisis? Dude, you’re not Batman.”

The comment shocked a short laugh out of Jensen. “How do you know?” he waggled his eyebrows, and then sobered quickly. “Heyerdahl and I were in the war together. There was…bad blood between us.”

“Do you mind if I ask why?”

Jensen rubbed at the back of his neck again.  “What you found out today? There aren’t many other people who know. The guys at the clubs who, you know, obviously _they_ know that I’m…but they don’t know _me_ , it’s all anonymous.  As far as people who _know me_ are concerned, I’m deep in the closest,” Jensen took a deep breath. “I mean, not just back where you keep the winter coats and the stuff you’re planning to give to the Goodwill, I mean so deep in the closet that my closest neighbors are a lion and a witch. Apart from you, the only people who know are Jim—uh, Captain Beaver and my best friend Danneel,” he paused briefly and then added, “And Heyerdahl. He managed to get photos of me at a bar in Saigon and he used them to blackmail me into doing things I should never have agreed to do.”

Jared was horrified and he knew that it showed on his face. “You mean he—”

“No,” Jensen shook his head sharply. “Nothing like that. He’s not interested in having sex with men.”

“Then what?”

Jensen shook his head again. “Nothing I’m proud of. Let’s just leave it at that.”

Jared held his gaze for a beat and then nodded. “Okay. If you ever want to talk…I know I talk a lot, but I’m a good listener too. Also, I have some experience with,” he trailed off and then cleared his throat. “My older brother’s best friend was in Vietnam. He accidentally overdosed on prescription medication and alcohol.”

Jensen sketched him a small salute. “10-4,” he said. “And thank you.”

\--

Jensen woke up the next morning surprisingly well rested. By the time he’d washed up in the bathroom, put his clothes back on and run his fingers through his hair to straighten it, Jared was in the kitchen brewing coffee.

“Morning,” Jared said.

Jensen grunted a reply and went and stood over the coffee pot, willing the coffee to drip into it faster.

“Not a morning person, huh?” Jared said. Way too perkily.

The coffee seemed to be done filtering through into the pot so Jensen switched the machine off and lifted the pot. “Cup?” he said.

Jared gave an amused snort and took two white mugs down from a cupboard and put them on the counter.

While Jensen filled the cups, Jared got out the sugar and the half-and-half.  He held them out to Jensen who looked at him in horror.  

“You’re already sweet enough, huh?” Jared said as he loaded his coffee with both cream and sugar.

“Coffee shouldn’t be polluted like that,” Jensen said, shaking his head sadly. “Although that sugar overload sure explains a lot.”

“Hey, we can’t all be as naturally sweet as you,” Jared cooed. “So,” he opened the pantry. “I have…waffle mix,” Jared looked at the box dubiously, “which may be past its _use by_ date. Also…Cheerios. And Captain Crunch. And, uh, that’s about it.”

Jensen raised an eyebrow.

“You know what?” said Jared. “We’ll drive through McDonald’s on the way to work.”

“Outstanding,” Jensen said

Jared grinned. “I’ll just go and,” he gestured toward the bathroom.

“I’ll wait here,” Jensen said. And then blushed pink because, duh. The idea of Jared in the shower might make great jerk off material, but Jensen was in no way ready for the reality of naked Jared in the flesh. Oh God. Stop thinking Jensen.

He looked up at Jared whose expression was a strange mixture of amusement, fondness and longing. “Yes you will,” he said gravely, flexing theatrically, “because seeing me naked would cause untold damage to your ego,” and he flounced out of the kitchen leaving Jensen with his mouth hanging open.

\--

When Jared came out of the Air Support locker room dressed in his flight suit, there was a dark-eyed, dark-haired woman waiting for him by the entrance.

“Hola, New Guy,” she said. “I’m Danay Garcia, Jensen’s old partner.”

Jared stuck a hand out. “Jared Padalecki,” he said. “Nice to meet you.”

Danay inclined her head and her smile widened. “Nice to meet you too, Jared. How’s my old partner going?”

“He’s doin’ okay,” Jared said.

Danay pursed her lips. “For real? I like Jensen a lot, kid, don’t get me wrong, but there were some serious cracks showin’. I don’t want him to get himself, or anybody else, killed is all. So tell me, is he doin’ okay for real?”

If there was one thing Jared prided himself on, it was being a good judge of character, and Danay seemed to genuinely care about Jensen, so he gave her an honest answer.

“Truthfully? He’s coping. His coping methods aren’t always the healthiest, but we had a pretty decent deep and meaningful last night and…I think I can help him, Danay, I really do.”

Danay raised her eyebrows. “You got him to open up? I’m impressed,” she paused and looked at him thoughtfully. “You know, there’s been talk about you.”

Jared’s lips thinned. “Is that right?” he said flatly.

“Yeah. I heard how you were an outstanding cop who got treated like shit by the team that should’ve had his back. We’re not like that here,” she put a hand to his arm. “I’m not sayin’ everyone here is,” her tongue darted out to lick at her lips, “uh, _comfortable_ with the idea of that lifestyle, you know what I’m sayin’? But ain’t a one of us gonna give you any grief and ain’t a one of us doesn’t have your back.”

Jared was absolutely not going to cry. Not. Going. To. Cry.

“Thanks, Danay,” he said, blinking furiously. “That means a lot.”

“Sure,” she grinned wickedly. “And in the spirit of welcoming you to the team, I’d like to give you this hat.” She handed him a black ball cap with JAFO printed on it in big orange letters.

“Thanks,” Jared took the cap and turned it over in his hands. “What does JAFO mean?”

Danay chuckled. “Look up, look down, look right, look left,” she patted Jared’s cheek. “Forget about it.”

She started to walk away and Jared stared after her perplexed.

“What? But what does—”

Danay glanced over her shoulder at him and laughed. “I said forget about it. You’ll find out soon enough! I gotta get going.”

She headed to the elevator and reached it just as it pinged open to reveal Jensen on his way in. “Oh, hey, Danay,” he said, holding the elevator door for her. “I’ve actually got something I wanna talk to you about, you got a minute?”

“Sure,” she entered the lift. “Ride back down with me?”

Jensen nodded and then called out to Jared that he’d catch up with him in a moment.

Jared watched as the elevator doors closed on the pair and then went to wait for his pilot out by the sliding glass door that led to the helipad.

\--

Meeting Danay as he’d been coming off the elevator had been just perfect, Jensen thought, as he pushed the button for the underground car park. There was no one else in the elevator and the privacy was just perfect for the conversation he wanted to have. Still, he started out with small talk, just to be polite.

“How are you doing on days?”

“Good,” Danay replied. “The kids like having me home for supper and their bedtime story. How’s the new boy going?”

“Great so far. He’s quite a character. Kind, empathic and downright respectable one minute; the next he’s like some over-hyped child on a sugar high,” Jensen frowned. “If kids came with an R rating”

Danay laughed. “Sounds like quite a challenge.”

Jensen shrugged. “I like him. And he doesn’t think that working with me is some kind of punishment.”

Danay looked at him carefully. “Maybe he thinks you’re being punished with him? You do know about him, right?”

Jensen narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do you know why he left his last precinct?”

Jensen swore softly. “That’s common knowledge now is it? Goddamn cops. Gossip more than a bunch of old women.”

“So you do know.”

Jensen nodded.

“And you don’t have a problem with it?”

“Why would I?” Jensen said testily.

“No reason. I just thought, you know, with you being an ex-Marine—”

“There’s no such thing as an _ex_ -Marine,” Jensen interrupted. “And being a Marine doesn’t make someone a hardassed bigot, you know. Just like being a female cop doesn’t make someone a lesbian. Those are just bullshit stereotypes.”

Danay held up her hands in surrender. “Touché,” the elevator arrived in the car park and Jensen stepped out with Danay. “So what did you want to talk to me about?” she asked.

Jensen reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the piece of paper that he’d found at Councilor Devine’s house. He explained what it was to Danay and asked her if she could translate it for him.

Danay looked at it dubiously. “It’s pretty badly damaged,” she said, “but I’ll see what I can do. Hey, me and Ernesto are taking the kids to the Griffith Park Train Ride on Saturday. Maybe you and Danni and Tim could meet up with us there? We can have a family day and I can tell you what I find out.”

“Yeah,” Jensen nodded. “That sounds great. I’ll have to talk to Danni, but I don’t think it’ll be a problem. Thanks, Garcia.”

\--

Jared stood beside the sliding glass door that led out to the helipad and watched with a very dry mouth as Jensen strode toward him like sex-on-legs wearing his fitted blue flight suit and a pair of aviator sunglasses.

Jared bit at his bottom lip hard. The very last thing he wanted was to get a boner while wearing his flight suit, because it didn’t hide much.

“Ready?” Jensen said. He glanced up at the cap Jared was wearing and grinned, before striding past him and opening the door.

“I was born ready,” Jared quipped as he walked through the door that Jensen was holding open for him. “Hey, Jensen, I was talking to Pete while I was waiting for you and he told me you looped one of these things. He said you looped a helicopter. Is that true? Or is he just messing with me?”

Jensen glanced up at him. “He ain’t messing with you, Jay.”

Jared’s mouth fell open. “No way. You really did that? You really looped a chopper?”

“Yep.”

“Wow. When did you do that?”

Jensen laughed and led the way toward Heyerdahl and the waiting helicopters. “When I was young. And stupid.”

Jared shook his head. “You don’t seriously mean you did a full 360? Right over the top?” he swung his helmet all the way around in demonstration.

“Yep,” Jensen said. “A full loop.”

“Wow,” said Jared. “I thought that was impossible.”

“Oh it is,” Heyerdahl called out as they neared him. “It’s aerodynamically impossible. And anyone who tells you any different is a damn liar.”

“This,” said Jensen, gesturing toward the man with an insincere smile, “is Colonel Heyerdahl.”

 Jared raised his chin and gave a hollow smile, but didn’t even deign to meet Heyerdahl’s eyes. He’d been ready to dislike Heyerdahl on principle after what Jensen had told him, but now that he’d met him, he could safely say that Heyerdahl was an arrogant dick.

Heyerdahl stared at him for a moment and then smiled thinly. “Right. You boys will take the ranger; I’ll be in my bird. We’ll have a little game. Follow my leader.”

“Follow my leader,” Jensen imitated Heyerdahl’s nasally tone at Heyerdahl’s retreating back and Jared choked back a snigger.

Heyerdahl paused at his chopper’s door and stuck his forefinger out and his thumb up like a gun which he then mimed shooting at Jensen. “Catch you later,” he said.

Jared looked at the scowl on Jensen’s face and decided not to say anything.

Ten minutes later they were up in the air and following Heyerdahl in a sedate flight over the city.

“Ackles,” Heyerdahl spoke over the radio. “Join formation with me, echelon right, and keep it tight.”

“Yessir, Colonel, Sir,” Jensen said. His tone bordered on insubordinate, but he took up position to the right and just behind Heyerdahl’s bird, none-the-less.

“Want to show me that loop now, Ackles?”

Jensen looked at Jared and rolled his eyes and Jared bit back a laugh.

“Not really,” Jensen said.

“Didn’t think so,” Heyerdahl sneered.

They flew in echelon right formation for a little while and then Heyerdahl instructed Jensen to slide over to his left.

“Boring,” Jensen muttered as he flew to the left. “I was doin’ this back in primary flight training.”

“Come on, Ackles,” Heyerdahal heckled. “Keep it tight.”

“Is he serious?” Jared raised an eyebrow. “Any closer we’d start eating blades.”

Jensen edged a couple of inches closer and Jared’s sharp intake of breath was audible.

Jensen turned to him and grinned. “Relax. I’m actually good at this.”

“It’s not you I don’t trust,” Jared said. “It’s him.”

They flew in echelon left formation for a few miles and Jensen made a show of yawning loudly into his headset several time.

“Okay,” Heyerdahl said finally, his voice tinged with irritation, “push it over and pick up speed.”

Jensen sighed loudly. “We gonna proceed to advanced flight training drills any time soon?”

“Just follow my leader, Ackles,” Heyerdahl said.

Jensen rolled his eyes toward Jared. “We’re following his leader, Jared.”

“Now follow me through a high speed timing turn,” Heyerdahl said.

Heyerdahl executed the move and Jensen followed suit.

“Yeehaw!” Jared crowed, pumping his fist in the air. “That was awesome.”

Jensen grinned at him.

“Level out at 500 feet,” Heyerdahl instructed.

“All right,” Heyerdahl said finally. “Your turn. I’ll follow your lead. Show me what you’ve got, Ackles.”

“Finally!” Jensen said. He turned to Jared. “ _Now_ you’ll see some flying.”

Jensen pointed the chopper’s nose downwards and dived and Jared whooped in delight.

Jensen turned to him and grinned.

And then the chopper’s engine died.

“Oh shit.” Jensen said, lowering the collective for an immediate descent.

“Say your prayers, Jared,” he told his observer, as he put the bird into autorotation. “We’re goin’ down.”

Jared took a deep breath and nodded. He picked up the CB radio microphone with a shaking hand and said, “Mayday, mayday, this is Charlie Alpha, we’re goin’ down. We’re, uh, somewhere over Willowbrook. Request ambulance, fire. Oh shit.”

Shutting the fuel off, Jensen licked at his lips. “It’s gonna be a rough landing.”

Jensen really didn’t have much time to maneuver, given how low they were and the speed of their descent. Scanning the terrain below for the most suitable emergency landing place, he picked out a building site and aimed his bird at it.

The construction workers saw and heard him coming and scattered. As the helicopter approached the ground, Jensen pitched the nose up to flare. But they’d been travelling too low, too fast, and Jensen wasn’t able to stop the tail of the helicopter from hitting the ground.

“Hold tight, JAFO,” he said, as the chopper bounced, then skidded, then bounced again, before flipping onto its side.

Men in hardhats came running from every direction, pulling the glass out of the chopper’s windows and reaching in to help Jared and Jensen out of the downed helicopter. Jared was bleeding from a cut to the head, and Jensen had to shake him and shout his name several times before he responded, but Jensen was more-or-less unscathed. There rescuers were kind and concerned…until they spotted the LAPD badges on their flight suits and then the mood turned ugly.

“Fucking pigs,” spat one man.

“I hope you broke your fuckin’ necks,” said another.

“Goddamn spying assholes,” said another. “Comin’ around, stirring up trouble. Get the hell outta here!”

Several squad cars and an ambulance came screeching onto the scene while Jared and Jensen were being none-too-gently escorted off the building site.

While the ground patrol officers secured the crash scene, the paramedics gave Jared and Jensen a quick once-over.  Jensen, they said, was free to go. Jared however, had a suspected concussion and would need to go to the hospital. Jensen watched the ambulance pull away, carrying his observer, and then he asked one of the ground patrol guys to take him back to HQ so that he could report in to Captain Beaver.

\--

“You okay, Jensen?” Jim said, coming around his desk to embrace Jensen.

“Yeah,” Jensen hugged the closest thing he had to a father these days just as hard, and then pulled away. “Jared has a suspected concussion and the bird; sorry Jim, the bird’s totaled.”

Jim grimaced. “As long as you boys are all right. What happened?”

“The engine flamed out. We were flying low and fast when it happened and even though I was able to get the collective pitcher lowered immediately in order to attempt a landing by autorotation, when I executed the flare, I couldn’t keep the tail off the ground.”

Jim ran a hand over his chin. “Given that the boys from Washington were using this test flight to assess your suitability to pilot Blue Thunder, I’m going to order a full investigation into the crash. I want you and Jared to take the rest of the week off.”

“Yessir,” Jensen said.

Jim raised an eyebrow. “What? You’re not gonna argue with me?”

Jensen shook his head. “Jared may have a concussion.”

Jim stared at him for a moment and then a small smile edged across his face. “Oh,” he said.

Jensen frowned. “What? Oh! No. Whatever you’re thinking, stop. It’s my fault he’s hurt, it’s on me. And he’s gonna need someone to keep an eye on him for a couple of days, make sure his brain doesn’t start swelling.”

“Okay,” Jim said. “Dismissed. You go take care of your boy, Jensen.”

Jensen flushed pink. “He’s not my boy.”

He really didn’t like the smug look on Jim’s face; not one bit.

Jensen left Jim’s office and took the elevator down to the car park. He was reaching for the Impala’s door handle when Heyerdahl came screeching to a halt beside him in a fancy red sports car.

“That was a really close shave today, eh, Ackles?” he smirked. “I heard your engine failed. Or was it your flying?”

Jensen stared at him stonily. “Back off, asshole.”

“Ooh,” Heyerdahl said, licking at his fingers and using them to comb down his hair. “What’s that I hear? Threats? Well, what a change. We are acting brave nowadays.”

Jensen glared at him over the roof of the Impala.

“ _Are_ you threatening me, Ackles?” Heyerdahl said.

“No,” Jensen opened the Impala’s door. “I’m telling you. Back off.”

Heyerdahl made his trademark gun gesture and mimed shooting at Jensen. “Catch you later, Ackles,” he said, before putting pedal to the metal and screeching off out of the car park.

“Asshole,” Jensen scowled, before getting into the car and making his way to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

He found Jared sitting on a gurney in the ER, arguing with an increasingly frustrated doctor about whether he ought to be admitted overnight for observation.

“Officer Padalecki,” the doctor said, “you have a grade-three concussion, sensitivity to light and sound and blurred vision—”

“But I passed your co-ordination and reflex tests,” Jared interrupted. “And you said that neither of the scans showed any bleeding or serious brain damage.”

“It can sometimes take a while for a more serious injury to reveal itself,” the doctor countered. “Maybe if you didn’t live alone—”

“Excuse me, Doctor,” Jensen interrupted. “I’m Officer Ackles,” he flashed his badge, “Officer Padalecki’s partner. If I agree to sleep on his sofa for the next couple nights, will you let Jared go home?”

The doctor turned and looked Jensen up and down thoughtfully.

“Will you make sure he gets plenty of rest, doesn’t do anything strenuous, and doesn’t drink any alcohol?”

“Yessir,” Jensen said.

“You’ll also need to keep a close eye on him, make sure he doesn’t try to tough it out. Wait here a moment,” the doctor moved over to the nurses station and came back with a pad full of forms. “All right, I’m going to release you, given that you’re not going to be alone. This is a Patient Instruction Sheet,” the doctor began to make notes. “I want you to take aspirin as needed, not exceeding the recommended dose. I want you lying down and resting as soon as you get home. I want you to take a week off work and if you experience repeated vomiting, if the headache gets worse or just doesn’t go away, if you find yourself getting confused, restless, or agitated, or the difficulty with your vision gets worse, or if you start to have difficulty with walking or balance, and of course if you start having convulsions or seizures or you lose consciousness again, then I’ll expect Officer Ackles to bring you straight back in. Don’t worry,” he said, when he saw Jensen’s concerned frown. “I’ve written all that down, you won’t need to remember it.”

Jared climbed down from the gurney. “So I can go?”

The doctor handed him the Patient Information Sheet. “You can go.”

Jensen helped Jared into the passenger seat and then got in behind the wheel.

“We have to go get my car,” Jared said.

Jensen started the engine and shook his head. “I’ll go pick it up for you tomorrow,” he said. “You’re not driving with a concussion.”

Jared glowered for a moment and then rubbed at his forehead and relented. “Okay.”

“What do you drive?” Jensen asked.

“A silver Datsun.”

Jensen pulled a face. “Okay, I’ll get Danni to come with me to pick it up, that way she can drive it back here and I won’t have to suffer the humiliation of people seeing me driving a Japanese car.”

“Hey,” Jared spluttered. “The Japanese make awesome cars. Very economical, fuel-wise. Not like this gas-guzzling American monster of yours.”

Jensen gasped in mock outrage. “Cover your ears, Baby,” he said. “The man’s concussed. He didn’t mean to call you a monster.”

Jared rolled his eyes and then rubbed at his forehead again.

“How are you feeling?” Jensen asked.

“Like I just survived a helicopter crash,” Jared sighed. “I’ve got a bitch of a headache and I’m having a bit of trouble focusing, but otherwise, I’m fine.”

They drove in silence for a moment and then Jensen said, “I’m really sorry, Jared. I should’ve been able to put the chopper down a lot better than I did.”

“Dude, you were amazing,” Jared said. “You didn’t have a lot of time and space to maneuver and we were going down fast. You were so calm, Jensen, so in control. Thanks to you, I wasn’t scared.”

Jensen glanced sideways at his passenger. “Still should’ve been able to land the bird without flipping her,” he muttered.

Jared looked at his partner silently for a moment and then said, “I think you’re being too hard on yourself, but I guess you’re the expert. And speaking of,” Jared lifted his ass off the seat and took his folded ball-cap out of his pack pocket. “What does JAFO mean? Garcia gave me this cap, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

Jensen grinned. “I can’t tell you either. You have to find out for yourself.”

“Oh I will find out,” Jared said. “Just you wait. I’m good at research!”

Jensen didn’t doubt him for a second.


	4. R & R

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 By the time they got back to Jared’s place, Jared was sleepy. He took a couple of aspirins and went to bed, leaving Jensen out on the sofa with the remote control for the television.

Jensen took advantage of the peace and quiet to call Danneel.

“Hey, Jenny-bean,” she said. “I heard about that chopper that went down today. Anyone you know?”

“Yeah. It was me and Jared.”

There was a pause and then Danni exploded. What happened? Was he all right? Was Jared all right?

Jensen explained everything that had happened as succinctly as he could, ending with, “Heyerdahl popping up again, the surveillance capabilities of this chopper, the mood down there on the ground in some of the Black and Latino communities. I dunno Danni…maybe Heyerdahl is just making me paranoid, but I feel like something real fishy is going on.”

“Have you talked to Jim?” Danni asked.

Jensen snorted. “He’s already got me penciled in for another psych eval next week. I don’t think I need to go adding any more fuel to that fire.”

“That psych eval,” Danneel said carefully, “is that because of the thing with Danay? When you wigged out, mid-air?”

“Jesus, Danni,” Jensen rubbed at his temple. “Have you and my ex-partner been talking about me?”

“We talk sometimes. She worries about you, like I do.”

Jensen harrumphed. “Speaking of Danay, we were talking today about meeting up at Griffith Park Train Ride this Saturday; you, me and Timmy and her, Ernesto and their kids. You interested?”

“Sounds great. Want me to give her a call? Set it up?”

“Yeah. Oh. I’d better give you the number here. I’m staying at Jared’s.”

Jared’s phone number was carefully written on a piece of paper tucked under the plastic in the center of the phone’s rotary dial. Before Jensen could read it out though, he was interrupted by Danneel’s sharp intake of breath and high pitched squeal. “You’re sleeping over at Jared’s? Omigod! Tell me everything. Is his cock as big as you thought it would be?”

Jensen’s own cock stirred uncomfortably at her words. “Danni!” he hissed. “He has a concussion because I crashed the helicopter he was riding in. I’m sleeping on his sofa to make sure his brain doesn’t swell up overnight and kill him!”

“Sorry,” Danni said, sounding suitably subdued. “I’m sorry. Hey!” she brightened considerably. “Maybe you’ll need to help him shower?”

“You are incorrigible,” Jensen told her. “I’m hanging up now.”

“Wait!”

“What?”

“Don’t be mad,” Jensen could almost see his best friend’s pout over the phone line. “I just want you to be happy, is all.”

Jensen sighed. “I know,” he rattled off Jared’s telephone number, so that Danni could call him and let him know what she organized with Garcia. “Actually, I need a favor. Could you come with me tomorrow to pick up Jared’s car?”

“Will I get to meet Jared?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Okay. And you can take me out to lunch too, so that we can have a talk. You can take me to that Korean BBQ, Downtown that you like.”

Jensen sighed. “Okay, fine,” he gave her Jared’s address. “Meet me here at midday. We’ll eat first, then go get the car.”

\--

When Jared came shuffling out of his bedroom, his vision clear, but his head still sore, Jensen was poking around in his refrigerator.

“You hungry?” Jared said and Jensen turned around and smiled at him.

“Jay! How’re you feeling?”

“I’m okay. Starving actually.”

Jensen opened the freezer and then turned to Jared. “Dude, I think you need to go to the grocery store.”

“Yeah,” Jared grimaced. “I’ve got a bunch of Take Out menus by the phone. Why don’t you order us up some pizza or something? I’m gonna take a shower.”

Jared washed quickly and jerked off slowly, trying really hard and mostly unsuccessfully not to picture Jensen in the shower with him, his chest flush against the tiny green tiles of the shower wall and one white-knuckled hand gripping the bright orange shower curtain for balance as Jared thrust into him from behind, slow and hard, while fisting Jensen’s cock with a soapy hand until he was begging Jared to let him come.

Jared came with a gasp and prayed fervently that he hadn’t been moaning Jensen’s name, because that would just be embarrassing. He dressed in grey sweatpants and an oversized navy blue hoodie and made his way back out to the living room, where Jensen was sitting on the sofa with a beer in one hand, watching the news.

“Sorry,” Jensen said. “I guess I should’ve asked if you minded,” he gestured at Jared with the beer bottle.

Jared told him it was fine and he should feel free to help himself to whatever he wanted while he was staying at Jared’s. He sat down at the far end of the sofa and tried not to blush.

“A memorial service will be held this Saturday,” said the reporter on the television, “for murdered Councilor Loretta Devine who was stabbed last Monday night in the driveway of her own home during an attempted rape.”

Jensen tensed noticeably and Jared glanced at him briefly before turning his attention back to the television, where news reporter Megalyn Echikunwoke was talking about Devine’s work for the Mayor on urban violence, her stance on the heavy-handed surveillance techniques often employed by the police, and the increased tension in the barrio following her death.

Beside Jared, Jensen was shaking his head. “This is such bullshit,” he said.

Jared licked at his lips. “You’re not buying the attempted rape line?”

Jensen looked at him, his expression hard. “Are you?”

Jared met his gaze. “It didn’t really look that way, no. You think there’s some kind of cover up going on?”

Jensen ran a hand across his mouth. “I know what I saw, but they got two bodies in the morgue, so they can cross out Devine’s name on their unsolved cases board in a very politically expedient time frame,” Jensen shook his head. “And you saw what happened when we crashed in Watts. It’s like a tinder box down there and the target of the anger? Police.”

“That’s hardly unusual. Lotta people got no love for the cops.”

“Right,” Jensen said. “And sometimes that’s justified, and sometimes it isn’t. But you heard what that guy today said?”

Jared frowned. “Uh, I hope you broke your neck?”

“No, the other guy. He accused us of spying on people. And Councilor Devine, she was against the use of invasive police and government surveillance.”

“Right?” Jared really wasn’t sure where Jensen was going with all this.

“Jared,” Jensen said slowly. “What special assignment have we just been given?”

The penny dropped. “A helicopter with state-of-the-art surveillance capabilities. Are you saying there’s a connection between the helicopter and Councilor Devine’s death?”

Jensen shrugged. “I’m just sayin’ my spider-sense is tingling.”

Jared looked at his partner thoughtfully. “Yeah. And next year is gonna be 1984. Maybe Orwell was right. Maybe the sky’s gonna be full of stealth choppers that can see and hear into anyone’s house. So much for privacy.”

Jensen nodded and took a long swig of his beer.

“Maybe we should give an off-the-record interview to Megalyn Echikunwoke,” Jared nodded at the television. “I kind of know her a little bit. I’m not saying we’re friends or anything, but we were at UCLA together and we had a class together. She was one hell of an impressive woman; smart, articulate and not afraid to stand up to anyone. What you’re suggesting, she’d be onto that like a shot. In fact, it already sounds like she’s suspicious about Councilor Devine’s death.”

Jensen shook his head. “I don’t have any hard evidence, just suspicions. What’s she gonna say? ‘Anonymous sources within the police department say it didn’t look like an attempted rape and they’re suspicious’? Yeah, that’s solid. And given what I said to Jim afterwards, it won’t be hard to trace the leak back to me, and you know how that’s gonna go: ‘Ackles is a Vietnam veteran with a prescription for Ativan and an upcoming Psychiatric evaluation.’  Real credible source, huh?”

Jared stared at his partner. “You have an upcoming psychiatric evaluation?”

Jensen sighed. “Yeah.”

Jared sat and looked at his partner. He didn’t want to outright ask, but he really hoped that Jensen would tell him why.

Jensen ran a hand across his lips. “You, uh, know how no-one wants to fly with me anymore?”

Jared nodded.

“I’ve had a few…episodes while I’ve been flying. Flashbacks, I guess you’d call ‘em. Scared the hell outta Garcia a couple weeks back, hence the evaluation.”

Jared looked at him steadily. “ _Should_ you be flying?” he asked.

Jensen shrugged and took another long drink, his lips wrapping obscenely around the mouth of the bottle in ways that went straight to Jared’s cock, and his throat rippling when he swallowed. Jared adjusted himself surreptitiously and Jensen caught the heat in his eyes and flushed, putting the bottle down on the coffee table and eyeing Jared uncertainly.

They were saved by the ringing of Jared’s doorbell and the arrival of the pizza.

 --

Danneel was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet when Jensen opened the door to her at midday the next day. She was wearing a pair of peach-colored high-waisted Capri pants and a white, off-the shoulder, v-neck, knitted sweater. She had a gauzy white bow in her hair and an oversized blue straw purse with leather handles slung over one shoulder. 

“Hiya, Jenny-bean!” she beamed, stepping over the threshold and pulling him in for a hug.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?” Jensen growled.

Danni giggled. “You may as well just stop, because that’s your nickname and I’m sticking to it…. _Jenny-bean_.”

She pulled away from the hug and grabbed him by the hand. “C’mon. I want to meet Jared.”

Jared was on the sofa and the closing credits of _Blade Runner_ were on the television screen.

“Awesome movie,” Danni said. “Harrison Ford is so sexy. I mean, he’s way cuter as Han Solo, but I definitely wouldn’t kick Rick Deckard outta my bed either. You must be Jared,” she plopped down next to Jared on the couch and stuck a hand out. Jared shook it.

“Yeah. Danneel, right? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Danneel waved a hand. “It’s all lies,” she said loftily.

“Really? You’re not an amazing woman and Jensen’s best friend in the whole world?”

Danneel gasped and put her hands to her face in mock shock. “He was honest with you? He must really like you.”

“Okay,” Jensen said. “We’ve gotta get going now.”

“But, Jensen,” Danni pouted. “I just got here. I haven’t finished talking to Jared yet. How are you feeling, Jared?”

Jared told her that he was feeling a lot better and that in all honesty, Jensen could probably go home.

Danneel inclined her head and studied him intently. “You know, Jensen takes that whole ‘protect and serve’ thing pretty seriously. Doubly so when it comes to his friends. Quadrupley so when he thinks a friend of his got hurt on his watch. You should probably just let him take care of you.”

Jared nodded. “Oh, I have been. He went to the grocery store for me this morning. And then he cooked me bacon and eggs with pancakes and hash browns for breakfast,” Jared patted his stomach contentedly.

Danneel grinned. “Well he did grow up hearing his mama say that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach.”

“Okay,” Jensen said. “That’s enough, _Yenta_. We’ve got a car to pick up.”

Danni stood up. “It was nice to meet you, Jared. And don’t worry about me driving your car. I’m an excellent driver. Tell him, Jensen.”

Jensen nodded. “She is,” he fixed Danni with a stern look. “Just remember that these are the streets of LA, not the Daytona circuit.”

Danni rolled her eyes. “Like you can talk,” she turned back to Jared. “We both did a bit of rally driving back when we were young and stupid. Just for fun, you know.”

Rally driving? Seriously. Jared learned something new about Jensen every day. He just hoped Danneel wouldn’t get a speeding ticket while driving his car.

Jensen told Jared they’d be back in a couple of hours and instructed him to take it easy.

He expected Danni to start in on him as soon as they were in the Impala, but she didn’t. She just sat quietly and looked at him, which, in some ways, was even more unnerving.

“All right, come on,” he said finally. “Let’s hear it.”

“I like him,” she said simply. “He seems nice.”

Jensen side-eyed her. “But?”

Danni sighed. “Did you see the expression on his face when he was telling me what you made him for breakfast? He _liked_ that.”  

Jensen frowned. “What’s not to like about someone cooking you bacon and eggs?”

“No,” Danni turned in her seat and pinned him with a fierce expression. “He liked that _you_ cooked for him. Don’t you see? That’s what he really wants.”

Jensen was completely and utterly lost. Danni thought that Jared wanted a cook?

Danni scowled at his confused expression and then smacked him on the arm. “You are _so_ obtuse, sometimes. He wants a _partner_. A life-partner. Someone to share day-to-day life with. He doesn’t just want to have sex with someone; he wants to cook with someone, and clean with someone, and shop with someone and take out the trash with someone. He wants a white picket fence and Thanksgiving with the whole extended family,” Jensen went white and Danni sighed. “And you? You can’t even get your dick sucked without sedating yourself and doing shots first. Can you offer him more than being your dirty little secret, Jensen? Because if you can’t, it’s not going to work. Not matter how much you like each other.”

Jensen opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Danni smiled at him so sadly that for a moment he thought she was going to cry.

“Don’t lie to me and say you don’t like him,” she said. “More importantly, don’t lie to yourself. I know you, Jensen. Deep down you want the same thing he does. You’re just too chicken to go after it.”

“It’s not that simple, Danni.”

“Sure it is,” Danni said. “You’ve just got to decide what’s important to you.”

_Sweet Dreams_ by the Eurhythmics came on the radio and Danni squealed and turned it up. “I love this song!”

“ _Some of them want to use you_ ,” Danni sang along to the chorus, “ _some of them want to get used by you; some of them want to abuse you; some of them want to be abused_.”

Jensen stared out the windshield at the car in front of them and reflected on the lyrics that his best friend was singing. It was a pretty accurate description of his sex life, truth-be-told, and in all honesty, he was sick of it. Did he have the courage to go after something more? Jensen wasn’t sure.

\--

Kim’s Korean BBQ was quiet, like always, and Jensen could never figure out why, because the food was cheap, good and plentiful. Jared would love it.

“Hello Mr Jensen, Miss Danni,” Mr Kim himself came out to greet them.

“How are things, Mr Kim?” Jensen asked.

“Not good, my friend. Not good. Somebody painted ‘gooks go home’ on the side wall again,” he shook his head. “Business is slow. I’ve had people telling me they’re only ‘buying American’ these days; that they know Asians send all their money out of the country and they won’t fund that,” he shook his head again. “I’d sell up only in this market nobody would buy. Anyway, you didn’t come here to hear my problems. What can I get you?”

As always, Jensen asked for a selection of rice and grilled meat, whatever Mr Kim recommended, and kimchi.  

“So,” Danni said, when Mr Kim left their table. “How have you been? Do not say fine.”

For a moment Jensen truly considered brushing her off, insisting that he _was_ fine, that there was nothing to worry about.  But this was Danneel. His best friend. What affected him, affected her and she deserved his honesty. “I’m not sleeping well,” he admitted. “Four hours tops. And I’ve been having nightmares. I’ve also been getting flashbacks again, like I did when I was first discharged.”

“Do you know what’s triggering the flashbacks?” Danni asked and Jensen winced.

He looked away and bit at his lip, before meeting her eyes again. “Mostly flying,” he confessed. “It’s crazy. When I’m up there in my bird, it’s the only time I feel safe and in control. But then something’ll happen, I’ll see something, and it’ll remind me of something that happened over there, and I’m gone,” he leaned forward. “Danni, I can’t lose flying. If they take that away from me, I don’t think I… I don’t know what I’d do.”

“You’d adapt and survive,” Danni said sharply. She reached across the table and took ahold of his hands. “I need you,” she said. “Timmy needs you. You _promised_ , Jensen Ackles, and I’m gonna hold you to that promise,” Jensen forced himself to maintain eye contact; made himself look at the tears that were welling in her big brown eyes; tears that he’d caused. “You _will_ keep fighting, soldier,” she said. “You don’t get to just lay down and die, you hear me? You _promised_.”

“And I’m gonna keep that promise,” Jensen vowed. He bit at his lip for a moment and then said, “I’m thinking about going back to counselling. I feel like I’ve been in a holding pattern since the war. Maybe it’s time to start really flying again; make some changes.”

The thought of trying to face up to his demons again was equal parts exhilarating and terrifying, but Jensen was really starting to feel that something had to give; and he didn’t want that something to be his sanity.

\--

Danni didn’t stay long when they arrived back at Jared’s place with his car. In some ways Jensen was relieved about that; she couldn’t prod and poke and meddle if she wasn’t there. On the other hand, she couldn’t be a buffer between him and Jared if she wasn’t there either, and after their conversation in the car, and Jensen’s epiphany that maybe, deep down, he actually wanted a real relationship, Jensen could have done with a buffer.

Jensen side-eyed the man sprawled beside him on the sofa and ran a hand across the back of his neck. He liked Jared and he wanted them to be friends. He was also attracted to him and the feeling seemed to be mutual and Jensen didn’t know what to do with that. He’d managed to get to his mid-thirties by putting friendship and feelings in one basket and sex in an entirely different basket. He wasn’t sure he could merge those two baskets without having a complete nervous breakdown. 

And it wasn’t helping; really wasn’t helping; that Jared was shooting him concerned looks. Jensen wasn’t used to thinking of himself as a coward, but he had to admit, Jared Padalecki, and everything he represented, terrified him.

Out in the grounds of Jared’s apartment block a little girl started squealing. It was happy squealing; a child at play; but Jensen was immediately hurled into a vivid memory of a desperate man holding his daughter above his head and trying to shove her into Jensen’s helicopter.

_The chopper was full and the little girl was screaming and clinging to her father who was shouting in Vietnamese: Save my little girl. Please! Save my little girl._

_Take off, Lieutenant Ackles, that’s an order._

“Jensen?”

_But if I take off, she’ll fall!_

“Jensen? Talk to me, man.”

_Take off! Now! Go, go, go!_

“Jensen!”

Jensen blinked and looked into worried hazel eyes. “I’m okay,” he said.

“Flashback?” Jared asked.

“Yeah. The girl squealing,” he shuddered.  Jensen suddenly realized that Jared’s hand was on his thigh and he shuddered again for an entirely different reason.

“Did you bring your medication?” Jared asked.

Jensen stared at him for a moment, shame coursing within him, and then he nodded; a small, defeated gesture.

“You’ve been anxious all afternoon,” Jared said. “Do you maybe need to take something?”

Probably wasn’t a bad idea. Jensen nodded and got to his feet.

Alone in the bathroom he splashed cold water onto his face and then met his eyes in the mirror. The eyes that stared back at him were full of self-loathing and Jensen had to grip the basin hard to resist the temptation to punch his reflection in the face.

He took half an Ativan.

When he got back to the living room, the quilt and all of Jared’s pillows were laid out on the sofa.

“Sit,” Jared said patting the sofa cushion beside him.

Jensen couldn’t think of a good reason not to, so he went and sat beside Jared.

Jared handed him a glass of something purple. Jensen sniffed at it. It smelled like blackcurrant. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Juice.”

Jensen blinked. “Juice?”

“It’ll elevate your blood sugar levels which, well, I always appreciate having my blood sugar levels elevated when I’m feeling, you know, a little low.”

Something in Jensen’s stomach flipped in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Jared was trying to take care of him.

“Thanks,” he said. And Jared’s blinding smile was worth every sip of the God-awful sweet juice.

Jared put _Star Wars_ on the VHS and then spent the first half of the movie inching slowly closer to Jensen in a way that he probably thought was really stealthy.

Jensen decided to allow it. Mostly because he didn’t want to draw attention to Jared’s obvious interest in him, because then he’d have to deal with it. And he wasn’t sure how he wanted that to go down.

By the time the movie was finished Jared’s thigh was a strong warm line against his own and the younger man’s arm was resting across the top of his shoulders. It was cozy and snug underneath the quilt and Jensen was sleepy and content and half-hard. 

“Hey, Jensen,” Jared whispered.

Jensen cocked an eyebrow in query.

“I’d like to try something,” Jared’s breath was warm against Jensen’s ear and he reached up to cup Jensen’s face and turn it toward him. “Don’t freak out,” he said and leaned in slowly. “Is this okay?” he asked, when his lips were no more than an inch from Jensen’s.

Jensen’s heart was pounding, the beats loud in his ears. He licked at his lips and then nodded.

Jared closed the distance between them and Jensen was surprised by how soft his lips were, how gently he moved his lips against Jensen’s. Jensen had never kissed a guy before; kissing was too intimate; too loving. His only experience with kissing was with girls, a long time ago. Girls didn’t have stubble. Jensen decided that he liked stubble. He brought a hand up to hold Jared’s head steady and then parted his lips and let Jared lick his way inside. For a few glorious moments, Jensen forgot himself completely, lost in the pleasure of the way Jared’s tongue slid against his, the way Jared’s fingers gripped his hair. He wanted, oh God he _wanted_. But what then? Jared was his partner; he wasn’t some anonymous fuck that Jensen could just walk away from. Hot on the heels of that thought was the realization that he didn’t actually _want_ to walk away from Jared. And that was truly terrifying. He couldn’t do this. He just… _couldn’t_.

Jensen put a hand to Jared’s chest and pushed him back, his breathing ragged.

“Jensen?” Jared’s eyes were questioning.

“I can’t,” Jensen said.

Jared huffed. “I beg to differ. You just _did_.”

Jensen nodded. “I know. But I shouldn’t have. We work together. We’re partners. And I don’t…I don’t date. I can’t have a one night stand with you and then just…work with you every day and pretend it never happened.”

“So don’t,” Jared said. “Try something different. Try dating.”

Jensen shook his head. “We work together. We can’t date.”

Jensen didn’t like the helpless expression on Jared’s face, the sadness in his eyes. “So I leave Air Support,” Jared shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve been there very long.”

Jensen shook his head again. “We’re both on our last chance here, Jared, both fighting for our careers. I won’t have you quitting. I don’t want that on my conscience.”

“So what are you saying?”

Jensen drew a hand across his mouth. “We should keep this platonic. Just…stay friends.”

Jared’s smile was thin and didn’t reach his eyes. “Friends. Okay.” He moved away and gave Jensen his space.

Jensen smiled; a shaky unconvincing smile. He ran a hand through his hair. “I should go.”

“Right,” Jared said.

“I’ve got this thing with Danneel tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

Jensen stood up. “So it’s probably better if I go home tonight.

“Sure.”

“Okay then. I’ll see you… at work.”

Jensen left in a hurry and drove home far too fast.

Stopping things before they got too far was the right thing to do; the most sensible option. He couldn’t risk his career; couldn’t risk Jared’s. And he could never offer Jared what he wanted anyway; his parents didn’t even _know_ , for Christ’s sake. First he’d been focused on his studies; such a good boy. Then he’d gone into the army; such a patriot. And then he’d gone into the police force; such an honorable man, working to uphold law and order. His parents were so proud. They’d completely bought his line that it wouldn’t be fair to marry when he had such a high risk job. They’d been disappointed, sure, but they had Isobel to give them grandkids.

Isobel suspected, of course. It was virtually impossible to keep anything secret from a little sister. But if _his parents_ ever found out the truth, they’d be devastated. No, he’d made the right call.

So why did it feel like he’d just been shot in the gut? 

\--

“Hey, Uncle Jensen,” said Timmy. Danni’s son was sitting in the back seat of the car, but he was leaning forward, his arms resting on the back of both Jensen’s and his mom’s seats.

Jensen glanced at Danni, who was driving, and rubbed a hand over his chin. “Timmy, could you sit back, please? And put your seat belt on.”

Timmy scowled. “Mom!” he complained. “Do I have to?”

Danni glanced at Jensen and then looked at her son via the rearview mirror. “Do as Uncle Jensen says, please Timmy. It’s for your own safety.”

“One thing I’ve learned being a policeman,” Jensen told his de facto nephew, “is that kids being unsecured in the back seat can cause accidents.”

“Yeah,” Danneel muttered. “And accidents in the back seat can cause kids; I’ve got proof of that.”

Jensen rolled his eyes at her. She’d married Timmy’s father. It hadn’t even lasted until the kid’s birth. “What were you gonna ask me, Timmy?”

“Can I see your watch?”

“Sure,” Jensen unstrapped his digital watch and handed it to the kid. “Do you know where this place is, Danni?”

“Are you losing weight, Jensen?” Danni asked, eyeing him critically.

Jensen frowned at her. “I think you have to make a turn up here somewhere.”

“Are you sleeping any better?”

Jensen raised an eyebrow. “Are we having two different conversations here, or am I going nuts?”

Danni giggled. “Guess you’ll find that out next week.”

Jensen rolled his eyes. “Don’t remind me. So do you know where you’re going or not?”

“More or less,” Danni replied. “It’s up here on the right somewhere. Don’t sweat it, Officer Ackles, I’ll find the place.”

Jensen looked at her gas gauge. The needle was sitting on empty.

“Yeah, if you don’t run out of gas first. You do know that you can’t actually sweet talk your car into running on empty, right?”

Danni grinned at him. “Shows what you know. Besides,” she tapped the gauge. “That thing’s broken. Don’t worry, I know when my baby needs gas.”

“Mommy, mommy! You missed the train ride!” Timmy shouted.

“Dammit!” Danni said. “Okay everyone, hang on tight!”

And she hauled the wheel around and executed a neat U-turn and then hit the gas, speeding back the way they’d just come.

“Fu—ar out, Danni!” Jensen yelled. “What the he—ck are you doing? This ain’t Daytona! Also? This is a one way street!”

Danni smirked. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” she said.

Jensen gripped his seat hard and winced as a truck blared its horn at them. “This is not good for my anxiety,” he muttered. “Not good at all.”

Half an hour later Danni, Timmy, and Danay’s husband and kids were riding the mini-train, and Danay and Jensen were walking slowly beside the track.

“It was pretty hard to read,” Danay said, pulling out the crumpled piece of paper that Jensen had given to her in the car park on Wednesday.

Jensen nodded. “Could you get anything from it?”

“Yeah. It’s part of a letter. It says something about strangers in the barrio. Making trouble. Something like that.”

“Huh,” Jensen said.

“And then there’s this word. All in caps. THOR. That’s not Spanish. That mean anything to you?”

Jensen shrugged. “Aside from being a Norse God and a Marvel comic character? No,” he sighed. “Strangers in the barrio, making trouble. I dunno, Danay, maybe I’ve just been in this job too long. Maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t there.”

They puzzled it out for a while and then let it go when the others finished their train ride, and dragged them to join in the fun.

\--  
Danneel hummed to herself as she made hot chocolate with marshmallows. Jensen was reading Timmy a bedtime story; Timmy’s favorite, _Where the Wild Things Are,_ complete with monster voices and everything. She’d spied on them for a little while and it was adorable, Timmy all tucked up under his quilt, clutching his favorite teddy bear and Jensen sitting on the floor beside his bed, growling, “And when he came to the place where the wild things are, they roared their terrible roars, and gnashed their terrible teeth, and rolled their terrible eyes, and showed their terrible claws,” while pulling faces and making clawing gestures with his hands.

Danneel smiled to herself remembering. Jensen was a good actor. And he would be an incredible father. It broke her heart that he would probably never get the opportunity to be one. She took the two mugs of hot chocolate into the living room and then switched on _TJ Hooker_. The episode was half finished before Danneel realized that Jensen hadn’t yet joined her. She checked the bathroom and then Timmy’s room. Jensen was asleep on the floor beside Timmy’s bed. Folding her arms, Danni rested her head against the door frame and watched her boys sleep. Timmy had a mop of blond hair like his father and looked like a little cherub when he was sleeping. And Jensen? Jensen looked a lot more like the kid she’d first met in college when his eyes were closed; when you couldn’t look into those green orbs and see the depths of Hell.

Jensen frowned in his sleep and began to twitch. His lips parted and he groaned; a low, wounded sound. “No,” his hands balled into fists. “No!”

Timmy stirred in his sleep and Danneel hurried to Jensen’s side.

“Jensen! Wake up,” she put a hand to his arm and he sat bolt upright, eyes open.

“Jensen?”

He blinked and turned to look at her.

“Shit,” he looked back at Timmy who was still sleeping.

“Sorry,” he rubbed at the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep in here.”

“It’s okay,” she offered him a hand and he took it and stood up.

“Come one,” she led him out into the living room. “I made hot chocolate for you,” she frowned. “It’s probably cold now, but I can heat it up for you in the microwave.”

She picked up the cup of lukewarm chocolate and reheated it for forty seconds. She set it on the lamp table beside Jensen, who was hugging her oversized green-and-purple cushion to his chest.

“What were you dreaming about?” she asked.

Jensen’s face became pinched. “Just…stuff from the war,” he said. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Danneel nodded. “Lately, you seem…worse. Not quite as bad as when you first got back, but not far off. Do you know why?”

Jensen shrugged. “It comes and goes. Sometimes, I can go years and I’m good, then I’ll wake up one morning and everything’s setting me off,” he shuffled and Danni thought that he was clinging a little harder to the cushion. “Heyerdahl reappearing on the scene really hasn’t helped. And neither has all the stuff with Jared.”

Jensen’s eyes widened, like he’d just said something he shouldn’t have.

Danni cocked her head. “What stuff with Jared? Just the fact that you like him, or did something happen that you should’ve told your best friend about?”

Jensen groaned and pressed his face into the cushion. “Oh God, it’s like we’re in Junior High.”

Danneel leaned forward and poked Jensen in the ribs. “What happened with Jared?” she demanded.

Jensen bit at his bottom lip. “We kissed.”

His eyes and mouth were downturned and he looked utterly miserable.

Danni frowned. “That’s a…. _bad_ thing?”

“Yes! I mean, not the actual kiss. That was…anyway, that’s not the point. I told him we can’t. You know, I stopped it before it started.”

 “Okay,” Danni said.

Jensen looked cautiously relieved. “You think I did the right thing?”

Danni sighed. “Oh Jensen,” she moved to his side and put an arm around him. “You know what the right thing would be? If you could hold your date’s hand in public without having someone screaming obscenities at you; if you could take a boyfriend home to meet your parents without your mom sobbing that you’re going to Hell;  if you could actually contemplate the idea of dating; of having a permanent partner; without having a panic attack. You refusing to even give things a try with a guy you like, because you’re scared that it _would_ work—Jensen, that’s not even in the same _ballpark_ as the right thing.”

Jensen smiled flatly. He picked up his hot chocolate and took a sip and turned to focus on the television in one of his classic avoidance techniques. Danni sighed.

_TJ Hooker_ finished and a commercial for the late night news came on, promising details of Councilor Loretta Devine’s memorial service, held earlier that day, and showing footage of people throwing stones and starting fires out in the barrio.    

Jensen’s shoulders tightened perceptibly and Danni pressed her lips together and held him tightly.

“I love you, Jenny-bean,” she said. “Don’t ever forget that.”

 --

On Monday morning, Jensen received a page from Captain Beaver and was formally requested to come into the office.

“What’s up, Jim?” he asked when he got there.

“Take a seat,” Jim said, his face impassive and his shoulders tense.

His entire demeanor suggested that this was a an official meeting rather than a more casual defacto father/son get together, so Jensen perched on the edge of the chair, with his back ramrod straight.

Captain Beaver had a manila folder on the desk in front of him. “These are the results of the air crash investigation,” he said. “The flame out was caused by a mechanical failure, and there’s no suggestion that pilot error in any way contributed to the crash,” Jim opened the folder and flicked through it. “According to the report, they took out the governor lever and found that the small hole in it had become slightly elongated. During your flight the throttle linkage moved from one end of the elongated hole to the other, which closed off the throttle and caused the engine to stall.”

Jensen processed the fact that the accident hadn’t been his fault and then sat back in his chair, legs sprawled casually.  “So did the report say how that hole might’ve gotten like that?”

“The report said ‘wear and tear’ and suggested that our preventative maintenance program might be deficient. Bob, of course, denies that categorically, insists that he runs a tight ship and that something must’ve happened to speed up the damage to the governor lever.”

“Huh,” Jensen said. “Okay. Was that all, Sir?”

Jim pressed his lips together. “No. It’s not all. I’ve had a complaint from Colonel Heyerdahl. Apparently you threatened him.”

Jensen sat up straighter. “What?”

“In the parking garage. After the crash. He says you were, and I quote, ‘hostile’. Is that true?”

“I just told him to back off, that’s all.”

“That’s all?”

Jensen nodded; his eyes wide and imploring. “Yeah. He was being an ass about the crash.”

Jim sighed. “You gotta understand, Jensen, they’ve got 5 million bucks invested in that machine. They don’t wanna see it totaled.”

Jensen leaned forward in his chair. “You just told me that the crash wasn’t my fault!”

“And it wasn’t,” Jim soothed. “But last week, Heyerdahl didn’t know that.”

“Right,” Jensen stood up, his hands clenched at his side. “He just assumed I’d fucked up and had a go at me. He didn’t know….” Jensen trailed off and then frowned. “Unless he did.”

Jim stared at him. “I really hope you’re not suggesting that Colonel Heyerdahl sabotaged your bird. Because that would be an extremely serious allegation. And with no proof, it’d just be your word against his.”

“My word against his,” Jensen snorted. “Story of my life when it comes to that bastard. No, I’m not suggesting that. Not officially, anyway.”

Jim threw his hands up in the air. “Goddamn it, Jensen. Do you know how paranoid you sound?”

“Yessir,” Jensen nodded. “But just because I’m paranoid, it doesn’t mean Heyerdahl isn’t out to get me.”

Jensen really didn’t care for the slack-faced, open-mouthed way Jim was staring at him.

“Jensen,” his tone was hesitant and uncomfortable, “If you want my opinion, I do think the Feds are after your ass. They’re not happy that Mayor Williams insisted on my personnel conducting the test flight over the city, and Heyerdahl seems to like you as much as you like him. But to suggest that he might have deliberately made you crash…Jensen…son…”

Jensen scrubbed a hand over his face. “Forget about it, Jim,” he said. “It’s been a rough few days. I just need to get some sleep.”

Jim nodded. “Don’t forget that you’ve got your Psych Eval tomorrow afternoon.”

Jensen’s answering smile was devoid of warmth or humor. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t.”


	5. Collateral Damage

[ ](http://s51.photobucket.com/user/zarazee71/media/Blue%20Thunder%20Art%20by%20cassiopeia7/05_collateral-damage_zpse4yvqzfg.png.html)

 Jensen’s session with Dr Traci Dinwiddie, the police psychologist, was positive. He made himself talk about some of the incidents from the war that still gave him nightmares and she asked perceptive, empathic questions, which, he found, actually helped him to look at some things a little differently.

In fact, their conversation helped more than he had thought possible. Maybe part of it was that Dr Dinwiddie was a woman. Opening up to her was a little like talking to Danni and it didn’t leave him feeling quite as vulnerable as he’d felt after his sessions with Dr Kurt Fuller, back in the seventies.

Jensen even talked about the brief flashback he’d had that had so spooked Garcia, and then he told Dr Dinwiddie about getting a new partner. He spoke about Jared at length; the way they’d just clicked; the close friendship that was developing between them, although he’d probably gone and fucked that all up now, not that he mentioned _that_ to the doctor. She asked about his relationships. Did he have a girlfriend? He laughed it off; said he didn’t do relationships, that he was married to the job. And then he mentioned Heyerdahl and the fact that having to work with him again was really ratcheting up his stress levels.

“Jensen, you were evaluated in ’75 and again in ’78 when you were given a prescription for anti-anxiety medication. Are you still taking that?”

Jensen nodded. “Sometimes. As needed. Not every day.”

Dr Dinwiddie made a note in her folder. “You appear to get along well with your new partner.”

“I guess,” Jensen could feel his face flushing. His eyes were firmly on the floor but he could feel Dr Dinwiddie evaluating him.

“And Jared’s gay, you say?”

“Yep.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Nope.”

There was a long silence and he glanced up at her quickly. She was watching him thoughtfully, her head cocked to one side.

“Jensen?” His eyes darted back to her face again. “Are _you_ gay?”

“ _What_?” Jensen could feel the color draining from his cheeks. “I? No. I. What makes you think _that_?”

Dr Dinwiddie smiled; a sad sort of a smile. “You’re a very personable, very good looking man who is perpetually single,” she said. “And you light up when you talk about Jared. Also,” she leaned forward, “if I may step out of my professional role for a moment, you haven’t looked at my chest once, and I haven’t yet met a single straight man who didn’t notice my rack.”

Jensen swallowed. “Maybe my mama just raised me right?” he said faintly, letting his Texan twang off-leash a little.

“I’m sure she did,” Dr Dinwiddie smiled warmly. “Jensen, if—and I say _if_ —you’re having some internal conflict about your sexuality, that conflict could be a contributing factor in your overall anxiety levels.”

Jensen tried to maintain eye contact, but had to look away.

 Dr Dinwiddie sighed. “I’ve counselled gay men before and I will just say that although coming out can be incredibly hard, painful even, not a one of my clients regretted doing so. Ultimately, living a lie is much more stressful than being who you really are.”

Jensen didn’t respond. He was too busy trying to stop his heart from beating out of his chest.

Dr Dinwidde was silent for a very long while, perhaps giving him an opportunity to say something, but Jensen had nothing to say.

“Since your last evaluation,” Dr Dinwiddie said finally, “there has been some progress in the area of psychiatric diagnoses. One of the newly recognized disorders that was added to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980 was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; or PTSD. Symptoms include strong and unwanted memories of the traumatic event or events, bad dreams, emotional numbness, intense guilt or worry, angry outbursts, hyper-vigilance and feeling ‘on edge’.”

Jensen nodded along as she said each symptom, because that was him to a T.

“Your symptoms,” she confirmed, “are in line with a diagnosis of PTSD.”

Jensen nodded again. “Can I still fly?”

“Do you want to?”

“Hell, yes.”

Dr Dinwiddie smiled. “I want you to see me once a week for a one hour counselling session and I want you to start taking half an Ativan a day, every day, just to ease your general anxiety until we get things under better control with the counselling. Okay?”

“Okay. So I can still fly?”

“Yes. I’m not going to recommend any change to your flight status. You can still fly.”

Jensen smiled. He suddenly felt lighter than he had for a long time.

He spoke to Jared that night, and it was a little stilted at first, but then Jensen bragged about the Mavs making the playoffs and Jared declared his undying loyalty to the Spurs and the good-natured ribbing that followed turned slowly into a two hour conversation about sports and family and school and when Jensen went to bed that night he deliberately didn’t jerk off, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it without thinking about Jared and that wouldn’t be right if they were just going to be friends.

\--

Jared’s stomach was swooping like a roller coaster. It was late afternoon on a Wednesday, he was driving to work and he felt like a high-schooler on a first date.

On Friday, when Jensen had gone home, Jared had been gutted. He’d moped around the house all weekend like a pathetic love sick puppy. Monday and Tuesday he’d cleaned and he’d worked out and on Tuesday he’d gone to see his GP and gotten a clean bill of health. He’d reconciled himself to going back to work the next day and being the friend that Jensen clearly needed. When Jensen had phoned him Tuesday night and they’d ended up talking for hours, it had re-ignited the crush Jared had been trying so hard to ignore, and now, he was downright scared that, in person, Jensen would be short with him; keep him at a cool, distant arm’s length.

_Do you really want to hurt me?_ by Culture Club came on the radio just as Jared was pulling into the parking garage. He turned the engine off, but sat in the car with the key in the ignition until the song had finished playing. Boy George wondering why people wanted to hurt him and make him cry, just for the terrible crime of being openly himself, hit just a little too close to home for comfort.

Jared certainly wasn’t as flamboyant as Boy George and he hadn’t exactly come out of the closet willingly, but when his sexuality came out at his last precinct, he had refused to be ashamed; had refused to hunch his shoulders, lower his eyes and go away quietly. If they were going to bully him, he’d determined that he wasn’t going to make it easy for them. They were going to have to do it to his face; and when they’d tried to do shit behind his back, he’d confronted them about it. He’d be lying if he said there hadn’t been a personal cost, but at least he could meet his eyes in the mirror each night. He wasn’t sure Jensen could, and Jared’s heart ached for the older man. He wanted to help him, but at the same time, he had to protect himself too.  There were rumors in the club scene that Boy George and Culture Club’s drummer Jon Moss were a couple, but that Moss insisted the relationship be kept secret. Jared didn’t want to play Boy George to Jensen’s Jon Moss. 

Jared found Jensen in the hangar beside the flight deck, holding some kind of helmet and laughing with a dapper looking black man in a military uniform.   

Jensen’s face lit up when he saw Jared. “Jared!” he called out. “Come and meet Sergeant Whitfield. He’s the guy who really knows our new bird.”

There was a sleek, angular helicopter in the hangar. “Is that her?” Jared asked as he approached.

“Sure is. Pretty ain’t she?” Jensen stroked the helicopter’s side lovingly.

Jared grinned. “Is there something you need to tell, Baby, Jensen?” he said teasingly.

And the really funny thing was Jensen looked truly conflicted. “Baby’ll always be my best girl,” he gave the helicopter an apologetic look. “But you’ve gotta admit, Blue Thunder’s a beauty.”

Jared held his hand out to Sergeant Whitfield and introduced himself. “So what are we doing here?” he asked.

“I’m supposed to give you both an overview of Blue Thunder’s controls and capabilities before Officer Ackles and myself take her up for a preliminary test flight. Once that’s done, I’ll sign her over to Officer Ackles and the two of you will take her on a full test flight over the city.”

“Cool,” Jared said. “Where do we start?”

They started with the cockpit. Sergeant Whitfield went over the standard controls and then the special features.

“These here are your television monitors,” he said. “You have three. The one in the center ties in to all your computer banks. Here are your switches. Night vision; infra-red filter; target system; whisper mode, so you can travel silent; audio, which controls your outside mikes, which are here,” he pointed to two long black pipes on the outside of the chopper.

“What’s the sensitivity of those mikes?” Jared asked.

Whitfield grinned. “You can hear a mouse fart at 2000 feet.”

Jensen rolled his eyes, but Jared couldn’t help his snigger. Whitfield looked way too buttoned-up for that kind of language.

“What’s with the helmet y’all were looking at before?” Jared asked. “The one Jensen’s holding.”

Whitfield grinned and took the helmet from Jensen. “This, here is your Harrison Fire Control Helmet. This baby is the heart of your system. Watch this.”

Whitfield walked around to the front of the chopper and stood beside the gun. He turned the helmet right, then left and the gun moved with it. “It superimposes the gun cues on the real world. Wherever you look, the guns follow. You can zero in on any target you want, just by putting the green tracer dot on your target,” Whitfield held the helmet out to Jensen. “You wanna play again? Try a little target practice?”

“Hell, yeah,” Jensen said.

 Jared’s lips curled into a soft smile at Jensen’s giddy enthusiasm. He watched as Whitfield and Jensen geeked out over the helmet until his attention was attracted by another one of Blue Thunder’s maintenance crew coming across with an armful of tapes.

“What’s that?” he asked. “Three quarter inch video?”

The maintenance guy was heavy-set and balding, with a crooked nose and cauliflower ears. He raised an eyebrow at Jared. “You know somethin’ about it?”

Jared shrugged. “I was a bit of an audio/visual geek in college. This bird’s got some really interesting tech.”

“She sure has,” the guy stared at him for a moment, considering, and then said, “Come on, kid. Let me show you.”

He walked around and kneeled down beside the chopper. “The tapes go in a locked memory bank here in the belly,” Jared watched the maintenance guy hit “3,3,6, C” and then slot C slid open. “Each reel is code numbered,” he said, “and these hardcovers erase the tapes on a signal from central command. Of course, the tape actually has to be inside the hardcover for that to work.”

Jared nodded.

“You wanna see the schematics?” the maintenance guy asked.

Jensen snagged his arm on their way past. “Whitfield’s gonna take me up for the preliminary test flight now. Should only be half an hour or so. Then you and me are gonna put her through her paces for a couple hours. Okay, JAFO?”

Jared saluted. “Aye, aye, Captain. While you’re doing that, I’m gonna check out her technical specs,” he nodded at the maintenance guy and Jensen let go of his arm.

“You ready?” Whitfield asked Jensen, as Jared disappeared into an office. Jensen turned to Whitfield and grinned.

“Let’s do this.”

\--

Blue Thunder’s blades spun and Jensen sat at her controls, eager to get her up in the air.

Whitfield was in the Observer’s seat and Jensen frowned when he reached up to the set of fuse boxes on the chopper’s ceiling and removed a fuse.

Whitfield met his eyes. “Just turning off Big Brother,” he said.

“What’s Big Brother?” Jensen asked.

“The cabin mike. It records everything we say in here and stores it on tape. I figure we don’t need that on right now.”

“Yeah,” Jensen said thoughtfully, “I guess we can lose that.”

Whitfield ran through the various system tests and then Jensen radioed the tower and requested clearance to take off.

“Unable to issue departure clearance at this time,” the tower responded. “We’re waiting for some personnel who need to observe the take-off to arrive. Repeat, unable to issue departure clearance. Hold your position.”

“Received and understood,” Jensen switched off the mike and scowled at Whitfield. “Seriously?”

Whitfield shrugged. “What can I say? Heyerdahl’s an ass.”

Jensen stared at him for a moment and then his lips turned up in a brief, faint smile. “Got that right,” he muttered.

A moment later the tower cleared them for take-off and Jensen lifted the collective with a brilliant grin and put the bird in the air.

“So?” Whitfield matched Jensen’s grin. “How does she fly?”

“She’s a little nose heavy.”

“Wanna check out the turbo boost?” Whitfield asked.

“Is the Pope Catholic?” Jensen retorted, flicking the appropriate switch with a whoop.

Whitfield laughed. “Easy there, Cowboy,” he said as Blue Thunder swooped past the Union Bank’s head office at speed.

As Jensen accustomed himself to handling Blue Thunder, he felt Whitfield glancing at him.

“What?” he said.

“Heyerdahl doesn’t like you very much, does he?” Whitfield said.

“About as much as I like him,” Jensen said.

“I heard you guys were in the war together.”

“Yep.”

Whitfield was silent for a moment and then said. “I’m not gonna ask you what happened, but I will say that Heyerdahl isn’t a man I’d want watching my back,” he paused and then added, “He wants you off this project; was furious when he found out you were the test pilot; even more furious when the Mayor refused his request to have you taken off the project. When I heard you’d crashed,” Whitfield stopped talking abruptly and shook his head.

 “I don’t have any cold hard facts,” he said. “But I know what this chopper’s capable of and I have family down in Compton,” he stopped speaking again and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say here, man, except something ain’t right. And you need to be careful.”

“Yeah,” Jensen nodded. “Thanks.”

The rest of the orientation flight past in relative silence and Jensen landed the bird back at Air Support’s helipad exactly half an hour after he took off.

Whitfield said good-bye and Jared joined Jensen as Observer and they took to the skies again.

Jensen hit turbo boost almost as soon as they were away from the helipad and treated Jared to some very fancy flying, which had his observer whooping and laughing.

“Man, this is so much better than patrolling in a cruiser,” Jared said, turning to smile at Jensen with dancing eyes and his ridiculous dimples. Which Jensen did not find adorable. At all.

Jensen put Blue Thunder through her paces, swooping and diving, climbing high, speeding up, slowing down and hovering.

“So are we gonna check out her special features?” Jared asked.

They were flying over Santa Monica Boulevard now and Jensen flipped to whisper mode and circled the car park of a mini-mall which had experienced an upturn in prostitution recently.

“How about we see if we can pick up any transactions going on down there?” he suggested.

Jared peered through his binoculars and his mouth turned down a little.

“You wanna spy on hookers?”

“I wanna test out the range on the microphones and they ain’t exactly obeying the law down there so I’d rather breach their privacy than some random person’s.”

Jared chewed on his bottom lip. “Okay,” he said, “but let’s just stick to audio.”

“You got it.”

Jared hesitated with his finger over the audio switch. “Santa Monica Boulevard,” he said. “You do know it’s probably gonna be male hookers down there?”

Jensen merely raised an eyebrow and Jared took a deep breath then flicked the switch.

_“$20.00 for a BJ_ ,” a male voice said, picked up loud and clear by the mike, _“$40.00 uncovered_.”

Beside him, Jensen felt Jared tense. “Twenty dollars,” his Observer said. “He’s risking his life for an extra twenty dollars.”

They missed whatever response the trick made, but he must’ve agreed given that the next thing the mike picked up was, “ _Oh wow, that’s the biggest dick I’ve ever seen_.”

Jared made a choked off gasp.

“ _I bet you say that to all the guys_ ,” drawled a thick Texan accent.

“ _Nuh, uh_ ,” the hooker said. “ _I ain’t bein’ an ass kisser, but they sure do grow ‘em bigger in Texas_.”

Jared turned to look at Jensen. “I think we should check out the video function. Just to be thorough.”

“Be my guest,” Jensen said with a grin.

Jared took control of the camera and zoomed it in on the black pick-up truck below them, getting right up close and personal with the back seat where a grey-haired man with a handlebar moustache was getting his dick sucked by a blond-haired twink. When the twink pulled back so that only the very head of the man’s dick was in his mouth, both Jared and Jensen leaned toward the television monitor.

“Huh,” Jensen said. “I’ve seen bigger.”

Jared snorted. “I’ve _got_ bigger.”

There was silence for a beat and then Jared groaned and put his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jensen said, his voice breaking on the word.

Jared looked across at him.

“I’ve been trying to do the right thing here, Jay,” Jensen said. “You’re making it hard.”

Jared quirked an eyebrow and looked pointedly at Jensen’s lap.

The soundtrack of slurps and breathy _oh yeahs_ wasn’t helping Jensen’s _growing_ problem any, so he reached up and flicked off both audio and video.

“Just…stop being so hot for a minute, would you?” he griped at his Observer.

Jared laughed, “Right back at you, Jensen.”

Jensen turned and flew away from the car park, back the way they’d come.

“It’d be a bad idea,” he said when they’d got some distance between them and the scene of the audio/video test.

Jared frowned. “You and me?”

“Yeah. I don’t do relationships and we have to work together so it’d just be awkward if we hooked up, plus I don’t think Jim’d like it, because of the whole fraternization thing and just, it’d be a bad idea.”

Jared was silent for a moment and then he said, “Jensen, we’re friends, right?”

Jensen agreed that they were.

“So we could be friends with benefits. It doesn’t have to be a thing. Doesn’t have to be exclusive. Nothing anyone has to know about. Just…buddies. Who sometimes suck each other off.”

Jensen swallowed. “Is that what you want?”

Jared grinned ruefully. “I’ve been fantasizing about my dick in your ass ever since I met you,” he admitted. “But more than that, I want us to be friends. If we can be friends _and_ I can get my dick in your ass, I’m gonna be even happier.”

Jensen was completely hard now and the thought of taking Jared inside him had his ass feeling miserably empty. It was probably just as well that he was flying a helicopter, because otherwise he might’ve rolled right over, shoved his ass in Jared’s face and begged. And then afterwards he would’ve been embarrassed as fuck and wouldn’t have been able to look Jared in the eye ever again.

“Oh _fuck_!”

Jensen looked over at Jared, who’d gone white and looked absolutely stricken.

“Big brother!” his Observer said, eyes searching the fusebox frantically.

“Relax. Whitfield took the fuse out earlier. He wanted to tell me how Heyerdahl really, really wants me off this project and I should probably watch my back.”

They were now approaching the Air Support helipad again and Jensen frowned when a red sportscar came barreling out of the Air Support parking garage and rocketed up the road.

“Speaking of Heyerdahl,” he said. “That’s him.”

Jared peered out at the car weaving in and out of traffic at a great rate of knots. “That is definitely the car of a man with a small penis,” he said. “Why do you think he’s in such a hurry? Or does he always drive like an asshole?”

Jensen grinned. “Asshole is definitely his default setting,” he chewed at his bottom lip. “You know, we do have this awesome, state-of-the-art surveillance helicopter at our disposal. You wanna follow him? See what he’s up to?”

Jared answered solemnly, “I think that would be a very fitting final test.”

As they followed Heyerdahl’s car at a discreet distance, Jensen sighed out loud. “I know the cockpit recorder is off, but what about the audio and video? Did we record that hooker?”

Jared said that they did and explained about the locked memory bank in the belly of the helicopter. Jensen asked if they could erase the tape before they handed Blue Thunder back and Jared reassured him that he could get in there, despite the lock.

“Man,” Jensen said, “this chopper hears through walls, fires four thousand rounds a minute and can zoom in on a guy’s dick from a thousand feet away. Jesus Christ.”

“Oh it does more than that,” Jared said. “This terminal is hooked into every databank that there is. Look, if I key in my name,” Jared did just that, “look what comes up. My name, date of birth, home address, social security number, occupation, marital status, the fact that I’ve never been arrested and have no outstanding traffic fines, and, just to really breach my privacy, there’s a link to my LAPD personnel file.”

“Shit,” Jensen said. “Put my name in.”

Jared keyed it in. “Huh,” he said. “It says, ‘No file. File under repair.’”

“File under repair?” Jensen frowned. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah. That’s weird. It’s not like you can break a file.”

The radio crackled to life and the Tower ordered them to return to base.

Jensen looked across at Jared. “Got any candy wrappers?”

Jared checked several of his flight suit’s pockets and then handed Jensen a crumpled Hershey’s Bar wrapper.

“ _Come in Blue Thunder_ ,” the tower repeated.

“Tower, this is Blue Thunder,” Jensen said. “You’re coming in very garbled. Cannot read.”

_“Blue Thunder do you copy?”_

Jensen began to crackle the candy wrapper in front of the microphone. “We’re picking up a lot of static. Can’t read you.”

“Hey, let’s look up Heyerdahl,” Jared whispered.

At Jensen’s nod he keyed in the man’s name.

All of Heyerdahl’s basic data came up, followed by _: Involved Ngoc Linh incident – sole survivor; involved Quon Duc incident – sole survivor._

“Sole survivor? Is he kidding?” Jensen said incredulously.

He kept reading: _Rank: Colonel. Honorable Discharge. Currently on Special Assignment: Project THOR_.

“Project THOR?” Jensen frowned. “Son of a bitch. That’s the word that was on the piece of paper I found in Councilor Devine’s yard!” He explained what he’d found to Jared and gave him Garcia’s translation. “We didn’t know what she meant by THOR though.”

“Let’s look it up,” Jared keyed in ‘Request information on Project THOR.’

Green luminous words flashed up on the computer screen:

_Project THOR: Tactical Helicopter Offensive Response._

_Proposed use of heavily armed military copters to quell domestic disorder._

“ _Offensive_? That doesn’t sound good,” Jared said.

“Those fuckers in Washington have been jerking us around,” Jensen said tightly. “This isn’t about preparing for a potential act of terrorism at the Olympics, it’s about militarizing America’s police force and let me tell you, my friend, when you end up with a domestic police force that looks, thinks, and acts more like an invading and occupying military than a community-based force to protect the public…trust me on this, Jay. I’ve been a soldier. The mind-set you’ve gotta have, it’s different. It’s why I feel safer being up here in the air.”

Jared nodded. “I’m starting to see where Councilor Devine comes in to this now. It’s almost guaranteed that this is going to target minorities and poor communities more than anyone else. If this is just the first step, if the militarization of the police force goes ahead, a lot of the cops out there on the streets are going to start seeing black and Hispanic people as enemy combatants rather than as civilians they’re meant to be serving. No wonder Devine was worried.”

_“Blue Thunder, you will respond!”_

Jensen frowned. “That sounds like Sterling Brown. I guess he’s in there giving the guys in the tower hell.”

Jensen crackled the wrapper in front of the microphone again. “Can’t read you, Tower. You’re breaking up.”

Jared switched his mike on and began to whistle into it.

_“Jesus Christ!_ _Motherfucker_!” he heard Brown swear, and Jensen sniggered, imagining the man tearing off the headphones as Jared’s high pitched whistles assailed his ears.

He looked across at Jared with a grin and his eyes widened when he saw the computer screen beside Jared. “Fuck,” he said. “Jay, look!”

Flashing on the screen were the words: _Request your Identity and Security Clearance_. 

“Oh shit,” Jared said.

Below them, Heyerdahl pulled into the parking garage of a large office block.

“Well that’s interesting,” Jensen said. “Look Jay, he’s going in there.”

“What is that?”

“It’s the Federal Building.”

“We should definitely see if we can track him inside the building,” Jared said. “I mean, what if he was a terrorist? We’d need to know the system could do that, right?”

“Absolutely,” Jensen said. “Besides, I wanna know what that fucker’s up to.”

Blue Thunder was still in whisper mode and Jensen slowly lapped the building while Jared used the audio and video functions to see if he could detect Heyerdahl. After a few moments he snorted and shook his head. “I’ve got awesome footage of a couple guys emptying the trash, but nothing on Heyerdahl.”

“Try the thermo graph,” Jensen suggested.

Jared scanned the building for heat signs and found a high concentration of warm bodies in an office on the top floor. “Top floor’s always the big wigs, right?” he said. “And at this time of the evening—what is it? Nine o’clock? That many big wigs in one place, it’s gotta be important.”

“Yeah,” Jensen took the chopper up to the top floor and hovered outside the window that the thermo graph indicated had a large number of occupants.

“Okay, I think I’ve got something,” Jared said. “Yeah, the audio’s locked on. The blinds are down, but I’ve got infra-red video. Hang on; let me turn the sound up.”

_“I still fail to understand….Air Support Division…on top of…”_

“Hang on, I’ll adjust it,” said Jared.

“ _Ah yes, Devine_. _I can’t say you boys have covered yourselves in glory there_ ,” said a smooth self-important voice.

“ _If she hadn’t started shouting_ ,” said another voice, “ _then it wouldn’t have been necessary to rough her up_.”

“ _Rough her up_?” said the original voice. “ _Is that the latest euphemism for assassination_?”

“Holy shit,” said Jared.

“ _Hey now_ ,” another voice said. “ _She had street informants. And she’d already made the connection between our project and the trouble in the streets. She was gonna go public. On the record. It was unfortunate, but for the greater good of the project, one black council woman is acceptable collateral damage_.”

“What the _fuck_?” Jared said. “Who _are_ these guys?” Jensen shushed him. “They can’t hear me,” Jared rolled his eyes.

“Shut up, I wanna hear _them_.”

“ _What about this pilot? This Ackles? Is that under control? Because I don’t want any premature attention coming to this project. Blue Thunder might be perceived as a threat if the bleeding heart liberal media get wind of it before we’ve got all the pieces arranged properly on the chessboard_.”

“ _Didn’t you just drop a hammer on him_?” someone else said.

“ _What do you think Colonel_?” said the original voice.

_“I think, Mr Pileggi, that I should take him out.”_

_“You mean kill him? When?”_

_“As soon as possible.”_

“Holy fuck, Jensen,” Jared said, his eyes as wide as saucers. “How is this real?”

“Heyerdahl’s hated me since the war,” Jensen said. “I know quite literally where he’s buried the bodies. We got all this on tape?”

“Yep,” Jared said. “Every incriminating word.”

“ _Alright_ ,” said the original voice, Pileggi, Heyerdahl had called him. “ _You’ll be given all the help you need. This conversation never took place gentlemen. If it gets back to me, I’ll deny it_.”

One of the infra-red shapes moved toward them and then the blind was pulled back and Christopher Heyerdahl looked straight out at them.

“Uh oh,” Jensen said. “Hold your nose, Jay, we’re in deep shit.”

He peeled away and then hit turbo boost, flying fast until they reached the Air Support Helipad.

“Captain Beaver wants to see you straight away, Ackles,” the Tower said as Jensen landed.

“Go,” Jared said. “I’ll secure the tape.”

When Jensen burst through Jim’s door and into his office, the captain was on the phone with a grave expression on his face.

“Yessir,” he said. “No sir. Yessir. Yessir. I understand, sir. No sir.” He hung up.

“Did you have a nice flight, Ackles?” he said, scowling hard at Jensen.

“Yeah, it was great. Listen—”

“No son, you listen—”

“No, you’ve—” Jensen interrupted, only to be interrupted himself.

“Goddamn it, Ackles, you cop, me captain. _You_ listen. If you notice I don’t have an ass when I get up outta this chair, it’s because the old man just chewed it off.”

Behind him, Jensen heard the snick of a cigarette lighter and he turned slowly to find Sterling Brown sitting in the darkened corner of Jim’s office, lighting a cigarette.

Jensen rested his hands on his captain’s desk and leaned forward. “I get that you’re angry, Sir,” he said, “but we really need to have a more private conversation.”

“We don’t have any secrets from Mr Brown,” Jim said. “Besides, you’re off the program, Jensen. You and Padalecki. You’re grounded until further notice.”

The phone on Jim’s desk rang and he answered it, and then passed the receiver to Brown. “It’s the Colonel. For you.”

“Jim,” Jensen perched on the edge of Jim’s desk and leaned in close, away from Brown. “We’ve gotta talk.”

“Ain’t nothing to talk about, kid,” Jim said gruffly. “After the stunt you just pulled, refusing to come in, then that phony radio bullshit, I’ll be out driving a black-and-white myself if I’m not seen to be dealing with you.”

Sterling Brown hung up the phone and charged out of Jim’s office as if he’d just seen the anti-Christ. Jim took another phone call and Jensen waited for him to finish, so that he could finally explain what he and Jared had learned. While he was waiting he glanced up at Jim’s bank of security monitors and saw Jared crawling out from underneath Blue Thunder with a tape in his hands. Jensen looked over his shoulder at Brown’s back, disappearing toward the flight deck and his eyes widened. Fuck. He had to be going after the tape. And by implication, Jared.

Jensen hurried after him, out of Jim’s office and down the corridor. He pushed open the glass door that led outside, but held back when Jared was nowhere to be seen.

He watched as Brown strode over to Blue Thunder and then knelt down beside the helicopter. He fiddled around beneath her for several minutes and then stood up, swearing. “Who unlocked the memory bank?” he demanded of the maintenance crew.

“It was that tall cop,” one of them responded.

“Padaleski?” Brown said.

“Yeah, somethin’ like that.”

Brown took off at a run and Jensen ducked back inside and then retreated down the corridor away from Jim’s office so that he wouldn’t be seen.

Brown burst through the doors and charged through the open-plan desk area to Jim’s office. He made a phone call and paced while talking, spitting out quiet, intense words that Jensen couldn’t make out from where he was hiding.

Brown slammed the receiver down when he was done and barreled from Jim’s office. He summoned an elevator and then stepped inside when it arrived.

As soon as Brown was gone, Jensen ran to the fire stairs, taking them three at a time as he ran down to the parking garage. These guys had a hit out on him and they’d considered an elected councilor ‘acceptable collateral damage’. If they had to kill Jared to get their hands on that tape, they’d do it in a heartbeat and that was something Jensen just couldn’t allow; not on his watch. 

\--

Jared stopped off at Walmart to get something for supper and a six pack of Lone Star beer, and then went across to Walgreens and bought condoms and lube. He’d taken a detour on his way home and hidden the tape that he’d taken out of Blue Thunder, just in case somebody came knocking on his door looking for it. Jared seriously doubted that they’d want to go to the trouble of killing him; he was nobody after all, and given that they were already planning on killing Jensen, killing his partner too seemed like it would cause them more heat than it was worth.

That’s what he kept telling himself anyway. He actually sat for a moment in his car and considered checking into a motel for the evening, just to be on the safe side. But then Jensen wouldn’t know where he was; wouldn’t be able to get hold of him if he came looking and Jared was really hoping to persuade the older man into his bed tonight.

The first thing Jared noticed when he walked in his front door was the light from his wide-open refrigerator door. He frowned and switched on the main light. His graduation picture had been knocked off the wall. And there was a man sitting on his sofa.

“ _Hey_!” he called, scowling. And then somebody barreled out of the kitchen and punched him hard in the face, knocking him sideways.

Everything happened fast after that. The man who’d been sitting in the living room joined the attacker and between the two of them, they wrestled Jared to the ground, kicking and punching him, pulling his gun from his holster and tossing it onto the sofa and then taping his mouth shut with silver duct tape, before binding his wrists with plastic snaplock ties.

“Take it easy, kid,” said one of the attackers, a craggy-faced, grey-haired man. He grabbed ahold of Jared’s face and stared at him with cold empty eyes. “We don’t wanna hurt you.”

“Yeah,” said the other one, a dark-haired Al Pacino type with a scar above one eye. “We just want the tape.” He was sitting on Jared’s shins and despite his continuing struggles, Jared couldn’t shake him.

“And you’re gonna tell us what we wanna know sooner or later,” Craggy continued, “and I really think you’d rather it be sooner. Because first we’re gonna break all your fingers. And then we’re gonna break your arms, and then maybe your knees. ”

Jared started struggling in earnest, trying to break the men’s hold on him.

“Now I know you don’t believe me,” said Craggy, “so here’s a little demonstration.” He nodded at Pacino who took hold of Jared’s left hand and grasped his middle finger tightly. The crack and the sharp, throbbing pain were almost instantaneous and Jared screamed into the duct tape, his face beaded with sweat.

“Now,” said Craggy, “did we convince you to make it sooner? Where’s the tape, kid? Is it in the car?”

Jared endeavored to look shifty and Craggy grinned. “Check the car,” he said to Pacino and the other man took off, freeing up Jared’s legs.

As soon as Pacino was outside, Jared twisted and brought a leg around, kneeing Craggy in the balls.  Craggy dropped to his side instantly clutching at his groin and moaning. Jared staggered to his feet and ran. He managed to maneuver the door handle with his bound hands and as soon as he was outside, he saw Pacino racing back up the steps to his apartment. Jared waited until Pacino was just the right distance away and then let loose with a powerful head-high kick, snapping the man’s head back and sending him tumbling down the stairs. Jared bounded down the stairs and then ran down the sidewalk, toward the gas station and mini mart on the next block.

The night air was cool and the streetlights bounced yellow off the asphalt.  Behind him, Jared heard an engine start, the squeal of tires, and he threw a frantic glance over his shoulder to see a white Ford LTD Crown Victoria roaring toward him. Jared cursed under his breath. They’d had a getaway driver waiting out front. Of course they had. These guys were hardly amateurs. The Crown mounted the sidewalk, sending several trashcans flying, and Jared’s feet pounded the pavement, hard and fast, in his desperation to avoid being mowed down. There were plenty of cars parked by the roadside and Jared ran between a couple of them and out onto the road. His pursuer tried to drive through the parked cars and lost a lot of time in the ensuing collision.

Jared switched to the sidewalk on the other side of the road and ran down it until he came to the intersection where the mini mart and the gas station were situated. He ran across the road, looking over his shoulder at the Crown as it came charging after him, and ran smack into a teenager on a push bike, knocking him to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs and spokes and handle bars.

“Shit man,” the kid groaned, and then his eyes widened when he saw the duct tape over Jared’s mouth. “What the fuck?” he said. And then suddenly he was pulling at Jared, trying to drag him off the road, and there was a roaring, screaming noise and Jared’s own eyes widened as the metal grill and bright headlights of the Crown bore down on them.

\--

There were flashing blue lights and a police cordon just down the road from Jared’s house. Jensen parked on the roadside and walked toward it, his gut churning and his pulse racing. There were several squad cars and a couple of ambulances. A kid with his arm strapped into a sling was sitting in the back of one of the ambulances wincing as a paramedic shone a small torch in his eyes.

There was a surprisingly large crowd of onlookers, given that it was nearly midnight. They were kept behind the yellow tape by police, and Jensen pushed between them as they shuffled and strained to see, clucking their tongues and shaking their heads.

There was somebody on the ground, long legs splayed, with one paramedic breathing into their mouth and another pushing down on their chest.

Jensen gravitated toward the scene, his heart in his throat. “No,” he whispered.

“Goddamn it, we’re losing him!” he heard one of the paramedics say.

“No,” Jensen whispered. “No.”

The paramedic doing the mouth-to-mouth sat back momentarily and _oh fuck, oh fuck_ , it _was_ Jared lying still and pale on the road, with one leg bent at an unnatural angle.

Jensen grabbed the arm of a woman in a pink fluffy dressing gown and hair rollers. “What happened?”

“Hit and run,” she said, making the sign of the cross. “The kid almost got out the way, but the guy on the ground got tossed like a ragdoll.” She nodded at the police standing on the other side of the road. “They said he’s a cop, but he’s one of those homosexuals. They said his partner in the po-lice ran him over because he made a pass at him in the locker room.”

Jensen’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding?”

“We’ve got a pulse,” said the paramedic and Jared was put on a stretcher and carried to one of the waiting ambulances.

Jensen wanted to run over there; to wrap Jared in his arms and ride with him to the hospital. But he couldn’t. Not only was there a hit out on Jensen, they’d tried to kill Jared. And they wanted to frame _him_ for it.

_They’d tried to kill Jared._

Fury coursed through Jensen’s veins like an unstoppable force. He would find everyone who was responsible for Jared being in that ambulance and he would rip their lungs out.

His pager beeped and Jensen walked to a nearby payphone and called in.

“Hey Jensen, it’s me,” said Jared’s recorded voice.  So far, so good. Check out Big Brother’s tape on Blue Thunder if you wanna know more.”

Jensen closed his eyes and tried to keep his breathing even. When he regained control he hung up the phone and looked over toward his car. There were several cops nosing around it.

Jensen turned and walked slowly to Jared’s apartment. He knew where Jared’s car was parked and he knew how to hotwire it.

Jensen was going to war.


	6. WarGames

[ ](http://s51.photobucket.com/user/zarazee71/media/Blue%20Thunder%20Art%20by%20cassiopeia7/06_war-games_zpsd4ieiahv.png.html)

 One moment Jensen was driving down the Golden State Freeway, his hands at twelve and nine on the steering wheel and his eyes fixed on the tail lights ahead of him, the next he couldn’t breathe, his heart was pounding in his chest and he was shaking and tingling, with chills running up his arms.

“Fuck,” he squeezed his eyes shut briefly. “ _Fuck_!”

He pulled off the freeway at the next exit and then drove for another block before pulling into the parking lot of large apartment block.

He was sweating now too, feeling light-headed and dizzy, so he pushed the car seat back as far as it would go, leaned forward and put his head between his knees.

“I’m not there, I’m not there,” he chanted. “Not dying,” he rubbed at his chest. “Not having a heart attack. Just a panic attack,” he sucked in air and pressed his hand harder against his aching chest. “You stupid mother-fucking _loser_ , Ackles,” he gasped, squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

Behind his eyelids he saw the strobing lights of the police car cutting into the dark. The twisted body on the ground. He remembered the copper scent of blood in the air. 

His anxiety levels had already been sky-high, it was little wonder that the attempt on Jared’s life had pushed him over the edge into a full-blown panic attack.

Jensen reminded himself to breathe slowly and deeply. He counted backwards in threes from one hundred. He recited the lyrics to _Paint it Black_ : _I look inside myself and see my heart is black; I see my red door and I must have it painted black; Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts; It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black._

And didn’t that just describe his life? Probably not helpful though. He needed to get out of his dark headspace, not further into it.

Jensen took a gulp of air. “Strange as it may seem,” he recited, “they give ball players nowadays very peculiar names. Now, on the St Louis team we have Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third—”

Time passed. Jensen began to shiver.

Jared had left an old grey UCLA hoodie on the front passenger seat and Jensen reached out for it. It smelled like sweat, cut-grass and _Jared_ and Jensen imagined Jared jogging through a park early one morning, sweaty pecs and biceps hidden beneath grey fabric. He buried his face in the pullover, took a deep breath and immediately felt like a creep. He huffed out a laugh and then shrugged into the hoodie.

By the time Jensen felt safe to drive again it was four am. He set his stop watch for sixty seconds and then closed his eyes. He opened them half a second before the timer sounded and smiled.

Okay. First thing he had to do was get to Blue Thunder. Jared had left a message inside her and Jensen needed to get to that message before anyone else did. He started the engine and headed slowly and sensibly to the Air Support Headquarters.  

Jensen parked two blocks away from HQ and switched on the car radio. When a news bulletin finally came on, the hit and run on Jared didn’t even rate a mention. Jensen frowned. That didn’t mean they weren’t looking for him, it just meant they were being subtle about it.

He put on his aviator sunglasses and then took them off again, because it was still dark and he couldn’t see shit. He found Jared’s JAFO cap in the glove-box and put that on too, tugging the peak down to obscure his face before pulling up the hoodie’s hood.

Jensen looked at his watch: 5.00am. He would wait another half an hour.

At 5.30, Jensen did another ‘sanity check’ and then he got out of the car and made his way to HQ, sneaking into the parking garage on foot when the security officer was distracted. He entered Air Support’s offices via the fire stairs and then made his way through the mostly-empty office. Jensen had timed his arrival to coincide with a shift change, so most staff were in the locker rooms when he walked through the office. He paused just around the corner from Jim’s office and put his ear to the wall.

“Why don’t we just blank the tape?” he heard Sterling Brown say.

“No can do,” Heyerdahl replied. “They tell me that Padalecki changed the security code. To go through every possible combination would take forever. And we don’t have forever. Ackles is a bleeding heart liberal for all that’s he’s a Texan Marine,” Heyerdahl’s tone was scathing. “Probably because he’s a Goddamn faggot, just like that Padalecki kid.”

Jensen’s stomach dropped through the floor.

“ _What_?” said Sterling Brown.

“Now you wait just a Goddamn minute!” Jim said, and Jensen could tell by his tone that he was furious.

“No _you_ wait,” Heyerdahl barked. “This outfit is a disgrace.  Your men have jeopardized an important government project and I will personally see you bumped down the ranks for this, Beaver.”

Jensen decided it was time to leave and snuck out to the hangar while it was still quiet in the office. He bided his time at the door and when the two maintenance guys who’d been out there went into one of the workshops, he slipped through the door and jogged across to Blue Thunder, carefully opening the pilot-side door and climbing inside.

Jensen switched on the cockpit audio recorder’s play-back button and Jared’s voice filled the helicopter.

“Hey Jensen. It’s Jared. I’m leaving this tape as a failsafe but hopefully we won’t have to use it. Hopefully I’ll be able to tell you all this myself when you come over later this evening. Hopefully…well, some of the stuff we talked about earlier that didn’t make Big Brother’s greatest hits tape? Hopefully we’ll get to do some of that stuff tonight, and I’ve gotta say, I’m really looking forward to it. I’m even gonna stop at Walgreens on my way home, if you get my drift. Anyway, I’ve got the tape and, just to be on the safe side, I’m going to hide it. There’s this drive-in that I go to at Riverside and Victory, on the corner there, and they’ve got a dumpster behind the concession stand that only gets emptied on Mondays. So I’m gonna put it in there,” there was a pause and then Jared’s voice said, “This is getting kinda fun, isn’t it? Real cloak-and-dagger stuff. It’s kind of a turn-on. God, I sure hope I get the girl after all this,” Jared laughed softly. “And in case you were wondering, you’re the girl, Jensen.”

Jensen’s lips twitched up in a smile even as he felt tears welling in his eyes. “Not a girl,” he murmured.

“Oh hey,” Jared’s disembodied voice added. “You’ll be pleased to know I finally figured out what JAFO stands for,” Jensen put his hand up to the peak of the cap he was wearing. “Just Another Fucking Observer,” Jared said. “I hope they’re right about the ‘fucking’, but I’m not gonna be ‘just another’ anything, Jensen, I hope you know that.”

A single tear slid down Jensen’s face and he nearly leapt out of his skin when there was a sudden banging on the window beside him.

“Get outta there,” said one of Blue Thunder’s special maintenance team. “You’re not supposed to be in there. Get the fuck outta there!”

Jensen lowered his head and blinked back his tears.

“Did you hear me?” the guy’s accent was all Bronx. “Get the fuck outta there!”

Jensen pulled his gun and pointed it at the broad-chested man clad in beige overalls who was glowering at him from beside the chopper.

“You talkin’ to me?” Jensen channeled his inner Taxi Driver.

“Whoa, man,” the maintenance guy held his hands up palms out and backed away. Then he turned and ran.

“Well I’m the only one here,” Jensen muttered, lowering his gun and putting it back in its holster. He sat for a moment with his head bowed, feeling the adrenalin surging through his veins like a horde of angry wasps ready to swarm.

This was beyond fucked up. His own government—or its representatives anyway—was deliberately whipping up trouble in disadvantaged communities to give them an excuse to militarize the police force. They’d murdered a popular elected councilwoman in defense of their project, they’d tried to kill Jared and they’d sanctioned his own murder.

Jensen lifted his head and stared sightlessly out the chopper’s windshield. In his mind’s eye he saw, not the LAPD’s Air Support helipad, but the grasslands of Vietnam, surrounded by jungle. Blindly, he started the chopper, and put her in the air.

If they wanted the police to start acting like the army, if they wanted a war, Jensen would give them a war.

He was dimly aware of Heyerdahl running out of the Air Support building and shooting at him, but the bullets of his handgun merely ricocheted harmlessly off Blue Thunder’s military grade armor. Jensen made a gun with his thumb and forefinger and pointed it at Heyerdahl. “Catch you later, asshole,” he said.

The familiarity of his hand on the collective and the comforting thrum of the rotor blades soothed Jensen’s fury enough that he could begin to think.

He needed to get to that tape and he needed to make it public as soon as possible.

_“This is the Tower. Blue Thunder, come in.”_

Jensen ignored the Tower and rubbed a hand across his chin. He knew the Drive-in Jared was talking about and there was no way he could set a chopper down there. He was going to need somebody’s help to retrieve it. He frowned. And then what? It had to be broadcast, and soon.

Abruptly, it occurred to Jensen that he was staring right at the answer. In the distance he could see the radio antennae and satellite dishes on the roof of the KBLA Television building. He chewed at his lip and glanced down at the keypad in front of the television monitors.  Whitfield had explained that it could be used just like a telephone. Sort of like one of those car phones that you sometimes saw in limousines and the fancy cars of big-wig executives.

Jensen changed Blue Thunder’s communication setting from standard radio to the telephone pad, which cut off the Tower’s nagging insistence that he return to base, and then, tentatively, he dialed 411.

_“Los Angeles Directory Assistance. How may I help you?”_

Well what do you know? It worked. Imagine being able to use a telephone anywhere. That was awesome.

“I need you to connect me to KBLA TV,” Jensen said.

_“That number is listed in your directory, Sir,”_ said the operator _._

Jensen frowned. “I’m calling you, because I don’t have a directory. I also don’t have a lotta free hands for dialing right now. This is a police emergency, so could you please just put me through?”

There was silence on the line, followed by a click, and then:

_“Good morning. KBLA TV. How may I direct your call?”_

 Jensen grinned. “Hi. Could you put me through to Megalyn Echikunwoke, please.”

_“She’s not available right now. Would you like to leave a message?”_

“Yeah. Tell her that Officer Jensen Ackles from LAPD Air Support Division called. Tell her I’ve got a package coming her way.”

_“Jason Ackles—”_

“ _Jensen_. Jensen Ackles. LAPD Air Support.”

_“Jensen Ackles. Got it sir.”_

Jensen dialed 411 again. “DA, this is a police emergency. I need you to directly connect me to the number for Danneel Harris,” he spelled out her name. And waited.

_“Hello?”_

Jensen closed his eyes briefly. It was such a relief to hear her voice. Danni was his best friend. She’d been with him, been on his side, since he was barely more than a kid, and she had quite literally made him live, at a time in his life when he’d seriously thought that the alternative might be better.

“Hi, Danni,” he said. And fuck. He couldn’t even make his voice sound right.

Danni was onto it in a flash. _“Jensen, what’s wrong?”_

“They tried to kill Jared,” how he managed to keep his voice from breaking, he didn’t know.

_“What? What happened to Jared?”_

“We found out about something. Something we shouldn’t have. And now there are people trying to kill us. And no, this is not some paranoid delusion. I’m not having some big, crazy vet freak out. This is real. And I need your help.”

_“Okay,”_ Danni’s reply was instant. _“What can I do?”_

Jensen hesitated. “I shouldn’t be asking you this. It could be dangerous.”

Danneel snorted. _“I laugh in the face of danger, you know that. Besides, except for driving the wrong way up the freeway the other day, it’s been far too long since I had some serious, high adrenalin fun. What can I do?”_

“I need you to pick up a package for me. It’s evidence of serious high level corruption. Jared hid it for us before they…they tried to run him down with a car, Danni,” this time Jensen’s voice did break.

_“Oh, sweetheart,”_ Danni’s voice was comforting and reassuring. “ _Is he gonna be okay?”_

Jensen took a ragged breath. “I don’t know,” he admitted, chewing at his bottom lip.

“ _Okay. We’ll deal with that later,”_ Danneel’s voice was steady as a rock. “ _In the meantime, where do you want me to take the tape?”_

“KBLA TV. Megalyn Echikunwoke should be expecting it.”

_“Okay, Jenny-bean. I’m on it. Where are you?”_

“I’m in the air, baby. I may have…slightly borrowed a state-of-the-art armored helicopter. Which I’ll be using to provide you with Air Support. And Danni? You don’t stop, okay? Not for anyone. Not even the cops. You give that tape to Megalyn Echikunwoke and nobody else.”

Danni laughed softly. “ _I knew that underneath that cool, officer and a gentleman exterior there still lurked the heart of the guy who stole Michael Weatherly’s boxers and hoisted them up the flagpole at college.”_

“Hey now,” Jensen said. “Nobody saw me do that. You can’t prove anything. Besides, the guy was an asshole, cheating on my best friend the way he did.”   

He gave Danneel instructions on how to get to the Drive-in and then rang off so that she could get going. He’d barely ended the call when the helicopter-phone started to ring.

Jensen stared at it. It hadn’t actually occurred to him that if he could call people, people could call him. He debated whether to answer it for a moment, and then figured whoever it was would just keep trying, which would be annoying, so he picked up the call.

_“Jensen?”_ said Jim’s voice. _“Is that you, Son?”_

“Lemme guess,” Jensen said. “You’re supposed to talk me down.”

“ _Yep_ ,” Jim said. “ _And to let you know that we know you called KBLA TV and Danneel Harris. I’ve got the boys from Washington here in my office and they won’t tell me exactly what’s going on, but they seem very concerned about some tape_ ,” Jim paused. “ _Son, if you keep this up you could drag Danni down with you too. There’ll be police officers looking to intercept her wherever she goes and Frederic Lehne will be waiting for her at KBLA TV as well. I’m sure you don’t want Danni to get into any trouble.”_

“No I don’t,” Jensen said.

_“So you’ll come in?”_

“No. Sorry, Jim. You’re just gonna have to trust me on this,” Jensen disconnected the call.

Jim hadn’t tried very hard to persuade him to come in, which probably meant that he trusted Jensen to do the right thing. No doubt he’d been pressured by Sterling and Heyerdahl to make the call, but he’d probably made it for his own reasons, to let Jensen know that they were on to Danni.

It didn’t take long for Jensen to pick up Danni’s car on the 101. He flew high overhead, keeping an eye out for law enforcement, and watched with relief as she entered the Drive-in without having drawn any attention. Unfortunately, the Drive-in’s boom gate was down and the security booth was unattended. Jensen glanced around and could see the guard making a circuit of the grounds. Below him, Danni sounded the horn and Jensen saw the guard look back toward the main entrance. He began to make his way back, but he was right on the other side of the Drive-in. Danni waited two minutes and then she backed her car up.

“No way,” Jensen murmured. “You’re not serious.”

Danni revved her engine and then charged the boom gate, sending it flying.

Jensen winced. The security guard began to run.

Meanwhile, Danni headed straight for the dumpster behind the concession stand.

Jensen watched as she leapt out of her Celica. She stood on tiptoes and peered into the dumpster and then turned and glared up at Jensen before hiking up the skirt of her red-and-white drop-waist dress and climbing into the dumpster. Jensen noticed, distractedly, that she was wearing high-heeled cowboy boots and a white, billowy blouse over the top of her dress. He bit at his bottom lip. He was really going to owe her for this.    

Jensen edged closer and his downdraft started to play havoc with the garbage, swirling it about and tossing it in the air. Danni turned and glared, waving her arms, her blouse and hair blowing in the wind.

Jensen backed off a little. 

He watched as Danni sifted through rubbish, occasionally rearing back and holding her nose and occasionally throwing something out of the dumpster. Suddenly she straightened, one arm held high in the air. She waved the box she was holding at Jensen, somewhat triumphantly, and Jensen figured it was the tape that Jared had left there.

Danni climbed out of the dumpster and then cocked her head quizzically. She waved at him again and pointed behind him.

Jensen looked. A police cruiser, lights flashing, and no doubt siren blaring as well, was headed their way. Jensen scowled at it and then at the security booth; the guard had probably called the police after Danni crashed through the boom gate.

Jensen waited until the cruiser turned onto the gravel of the Drive-in and then flew straight at him, low and fast. The cruiser came to a halt as the driver was blinded by thick dust and flying gravel.  Danni’s Celica went shooting by. The cruiser tried to inch backwards so Jensen went and sat right on top of him, ensuring that he was enveloped completely in the dust and grit blown up by Jensen’s downdraft. Danni wasn’t wasting any time. Instead of driving on the roadway, around the outside of the Drive-in, she went straight down the middle, in between all the speakers and over the mounds that separated each row. The speed she was going, she got airborne every time and Jensen couldn’t help grinning. She would’ve given the Duke boys a run for their money, that’s for sure.

When he thought he’d given Danni enough of a head start, Jensen took off after her.

The cop took off too, so Jensen swooped again and this time the driver lost control when Jensen dusted him and crashed into the Drive-in’s fence.

Jensen flew after Danni again, following her onto the freeway and shadowing her from the sky, ready and willing to take on anyone who tried to stop her.  

What he hadn’t counted on was someone coming to try and stop him. Jensen was so focused on Danni that it took him an unacceptably long time to realize that he was being flanked by two police helicopters, both with heavily armed tactical response officers in the rear.

He recognized Joe Yazzie piloting the bird on his left and Caroline Chikezie piloting the bird on his right. Jensen couldn’t help smiling. The squad Jim had put together was nothing if not diverse. Chikezie tapped on her helmet and Jensen switched back to radio.

“Hello, Chikezie,” he said, “Hey, have you heard the one about the white man, the black woman and the Navajo man who went up in three helicopters?”

Chikezie’s sigh was audible. “ _Yeah_ ,” she said. “ _It ends with the white man coming in quietly_.”

Jensen smiled. “Not in the version I know.”

“Ackles,” Chikezie’s voice was deadly serious. “I got two SWAT boys in the back and orders to hold this bird steady and let them shoot at you. Don’t make me do that, Jensen.”

 “Whatever happens,” Jensen said, “I’m not gonna hold it against you or Yazzie.”

“ _No._ _Hang on_ ,” Jensen heard Chikezie say, her voice muffled. “ _Let me keep trying, just for a little while longer_.”

“Caroline,” he said gently. “I’m not coming in. There’s more going on than you know about.”

“ _I know_ ,” she said. “ _We all know about Jared. Sweetheart…whatever he did, however threatened it made you feel, we all know you didn’t mean to hit him with your car—”_

“I didn’t hit him with my car!” Jensen hissed into his headset. “That was them! They’re trying to kill both of us!”

Joe Yazzie finally spoke. “ _Who’s ‘they’_?” his voice rumbled over the radio.

Jensen laughed shortly. “It doesn’t matter. Either you’re gonna see proof in a few hours or I’m gonna be dead.  Jared too probably. The less you know the better. Fewer loose ends to tie up.”

“ _Jensen_ ,” Chikezie said softly.

“I know how it sounds,” Jensen said. “But I’m not crazy, Caroline. And I’m not coming in.”

There was a long moment of silence and then Chikezie said, “My team just received the go ahead to fire on you.”

Jensen glanced at the SWAT boys and saw them preparing their weapons.

“They got rocket launchers?” Jensen asked. “Because if they don’t, y’all might wanna watch out for the ricochet.”

Chikezie moved her bird a little further away and Jensen watched passively as several rounds bounced harmlessly off Blue Thunder’s armor plating.

“Sorry about this, Caroline,” he said, switching on the weapon’s guidance capability of his Harrison Fire Control Helmet. Jensen turned to look at Chikezie’s tail and then fired the electric cannon, taking out the tail rotor.

“ _Son-of-a-bitch_ ,” Chikezie immediately began executing emergency landing procedures.

“Sorry,” Jensen said again.

He didn’t get a response, but then he didn’t expect one. Chikezie was too busy trying not to crash.

“ _That was cold, Ackles_ ,” Yazzie said. “ _I sure hope you ain’t expecting a Christmas card from anyone in Air Support this year_.”

“Your guys gonna shoot at me too?” Jensen asked, taking off at speed.

The SWAT guys in Yazzie’s chopper starting shooting at Jensen, trying to take out his tail, and he had to pull off some pretty fancy flying to avoid being hit.

“Hey, Yazzie?” he said into his headset. “Follow my leader.”

He swooped low into the LA River drain, tilting the chopper this way and that to avoid SWAT’s bullets, skimming along just above the water and taking Blue Thunder beneath the bridges that spanned the drain.

High above them, Jensen spotted the red KBLA TV helicopter, with a crew filming the helicopter chase.

“ _I hope you don’t think you’re gonna lose me,”_ Yazzie said. “ _This is just like flying the canyons back home_.”

Jensen switched on his rear video monitor so that he could watch Yazzie flying behind him. Joe was an excellent pilot and Jensen didn’t think he did have a lot of hope of losing him or forcing him to land. One of the marksmen was trying to move forward, hanging precariously out of the door and Jensen banked left, hard, knowing that Yazzie would follow suit.

Jensen sniggered as the marksmen fell out of the chopper, from a height of about ten feet.  Jensen watched him roll, then stand up and stomp his foot; nothing broken from the look of it, just a severely bruised ego.

“Looks like you lost a passenger, Joe,” Jensen said. He watched in his video monitor as Yazzie touched down to pick up the tactical officer, and then he hit turbo boost, hoping to outfly Yazzie and catch up with Danni. He shot past the KBLA helicopter and then watched in the monitor as they went in for a closer look at the chopper down on the ground.

Jensen could hear Yazzie yelling at them over his headset, telling them to get out of the way, that they were interfering with a police pursuit.

It gave Jensen the time he needed to get away and he was soon flying over the freeway again, looking for Danni.

\--

Danneel had lost track of Jensen some time back, but she was currently cop-free and her car radio was blasting out _Eye of the Tiger,_ so Danni was happy. She tapped her hand against the steering wheel, her eyes glancing frequently into her rearview mirror, as she sang along with Survivor:  _“It's the eye of the tiger, It's the thrill of the fight, Risin' up to the challenge, Of our rival, And the last known survivor, Stalks his prey in the night, And he's watching us all with the, Eye of the tiger.”_ It was a great track for offensive driving and Danni was initially pissed when KIIS-FM interrupted the song to inform her breathlessly that there was some sort of aerial helicopter battle going on in the skies above Los Angeles.

“ _We’re getting reports_ ,” said the DJ, “ _that an LAPD Air Support Officer has stolen a state-of-the-art helicopter that was being tested here in LA in preparation for potential anti-terrorist measures that may become necessary if next year’s Olympics are the target of a terrorist attack. We’ve been speaking to KBLA’s Daniel Hewitt who is reporting live from the KBLA helicopter. Daniel what more can you tell us?”_

_“Good morning, Linda. It’s been like something out of the war here in the skies over Los Angeles today. We’ve already seen one police helicopter shot down by a man who we understand is a Vietnam veteran, currently under psychiatric care.”_

“ _Goodness me_!” gushed Linda the DJ, and Danneel rolled her eyes. “ _Scary stuff, Daniel_.”

“ _It certainly is, Linda. Our sources in the police department won’t give us the man’s name, but they do tell us that he was recently cleared for flight status by a police psychologist following a flashback he experienced a month ago while flying that almost resulted in a crash and then, just one week ago, he actually did crash, down in Willowbrook_.”

“ _And after all that, he was still cleared to fly_?” Linda the DJ sounded thoroughly scandalized. “ _Well I bet somebody’s regretting that decision right about now_.”

Danni glared at the radio. “Assholes,” she said. “You have no idea what’s really going on, but don’t let that stop you from reporting!”

“ _Oh_!” said Daniel Hewitt. “ _A SWAT officer has just fallen from one of the police helicopters. He’s alright. Obviously not injured, but the police helicopter has broken off the chase to go back for him. ”_

Danni sniggered. “Lucky break there, Jensen.”

She glanced back at her rearview mirror and her eyes widened as she spotted a police cruiser working its way up through the traffic toward her, without its lights or sirens going.

“Dammit!” Danni put her foot down and began to weave from lane to lane, veering in between cars and generally pissing off all the drivers around her. The police cruiser gave up on stealth mode and switched to lights and sirens.

Much to Danni’s consternation, the other drivers started to get out of the police car’s way.

“What the Hell?” Danni yelled. “What’s with the polite driving? Is this LA or Vancouver?”

She cut in front of a yellow minivan, causing it to swerve into the next lane and collide with a navy blue Pontiac Grand Prix. “Oops,” she ducked her head and waved apologetically. “Sorry. My bad.”

The cruiser made it around the accident just fine and was suddenly right beside her.

“Pull over,” the officer shouted over the loud-hailer, waving his arm toward the emergency lane.

 Danni realized, with a horrible nauseous sinking feeling, that it was all over. Jensen had been relying on her to get the tape to KBLA and she’d let him down.

She slowed down and then changed lanes, coming to a stop in the emergency lane, right at the apex of the bridge.

Danny couldn’t help pouting. She wound down her window and then sat in the car with her hands on the steering wheel and waited while two police officers advanced on her with their guns drawn.

“Is there a problem Officer?” she said in her best sultry voice as one of them approached her window.   

“Oh yeah, there’s a problem alright. I need to see your license and registration, ma’am.”

Danni let her eyes widen and her bottom lip drop. “Oh,” she said. “Uh. Yeah. Sure. Is it okay if I reach for my purse?”

“Go ahead.”

The other police officer had gone around to the other side of the car and was peering in through the passenger side window. Danni stuck her tits out when she leaned forward to pick up her purse and did her very best ‘ditzy woman’ act. She held her purse on her lap and began to rummage through it.

“Uh. It’s in here somewhere,” she said. “Or maybe I left it in my other purse?”

“Alright, ma’am,” said the cop, opening her door. “Why don’t you step out of the car?”

Danni pouted up at him and then her eyes widened as a big, black helicopter rose from behind the bridge’s railing.

“What the Hell?” said the cop, holding a hand up to shield his face from the chopper’s downdraft.

Jensen’s face grinned out at Danni from the helicopter’s cockpit and Danni smiled back at him before slamming her car door and taking off.

She heard a shout behind her, the bang of car doors shutting, and then it was lights and sirens again. Danni looked in her rearview mirror just in time to see the back half of the police cruiser separate from the rest of the car and burst into flames.

“Omigod!” she whispered, her eyes widening. Jensen had done that. He’d torn the cruiser in two with the helicopter’s cannon-like gun. She watched in disbelief as the front part of the cruiser slid all over the road, out of control, hitting a bus and finally crashing into the bridge’s guard railing. She didn’t see where the back of the car ended up.

As Danni came off the freeway she picked up a motorcycle cop, but Jensen was onto him in a flash, sitting on top of him with the chopper and causing so much wind that he couldn’t keep the bike upright and ended up sliding on his side down the road.

With no-one in pursuit any more, Danni slowed down and started obeying the road rules. She headed steadily toward KBLA TV with Jensen watching her six, once again ready, willing and able to shoot down or otherwise deal with anyone who tried to interfere.

When she got to the square grey office building with the giant 8 out the front, she parked the car with two wheels up on the curb and then ran for the front door. She stopped on the steps and waved at Jensen. He was too far away for her to see if he waved back, but he pulled away as she pushed open KBLA’s front door and made her way into the crowded reception area.

One beleaguered receptionist and one security guard were struggling to cope with a mob of thirty or forty people, all clamoring for attention.

“Excuse me, Sir?” she said to the security guard, “I have to get this tape to Megalyn Echikunwoke.”

“Take a number, Lady; we’re a little busy right now.”

“But this is important,” Danni said firmly, waving the tape at him. “It’s from Jensen Ackles.”

The security guard snorted. “I don’t care if it’s from the President. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a crazy man in a hijacked combat helicopter flying over LA and everybody’s got a story to tell us. You’ll have to take a seat and wait your turn.”

Danni scowled and was about to give the guard a piece of her mind when a grey-haired, grey-eyed man in a suit appeared at her elbow.

“Miss?” he said. “Did I overhear you saying that that tape is from Jensen Ackles?”

Danni looked at the man suspiciously. There was something about his smarmy voice and the glint in his eyes that made her reluctant to trust him.

“Who wants to know?” she demanded, putting a hand on her hip and narrowing her eyes.

The man smiled in a way that he probably thought was charming and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m Dick Fisher, Megalyn’s producer. I can take that for you, if you like? Save you the bother of having to hang around and wait.”

“No thanks,” Danneel said coolly. “Jensen wanted me to put it in Megalyn’s hands myself.”

Dick’s smile got even smarmier. “Well now, I’m sure Jensen didn’t realize just quite how chaotic it was going to be down here. I am, as I said, Megalyn’s producer. And I can take care of that for you.” He held his hand out expectantly.

Danneel scowled at him. “And I am, as I said, going to give this to Megalyn myself.”

“Hi,” said a voice from behind. “I’m Megalyn Echikunwoke. Are you the one with the tape from Jensen Ackles?”

Danneel turned and watched with relief as a dark-skinned woman with shoulder length black curly hair came down the red metal stairs and into the reception area. She was wearing a dark green pants suit with a frilly white blouse and black stilettos and Danni recognized her immediately from her nightly news broadcasts.

“Yes,” Danni said. “Megalyn. Hi. It’s so good to meet you. I guess it’s true what they say about the camera adding ten pounds,” she gasped. “Oh, sorry. That was rude. Was that rude? Jensen sometimes says I have no filter, which is probably just as well because his filter is more like a plug and if we were both like him we’d never communicate. And I’m rambling. It’s been a tough day.” Danneel held the tape out to Megalyn. “Here. Your producer wanted me to give it to him, but—”

“Who?” Megalyn interrupted.

Danneel gestured at Dick who was still standing beside her. “Your producer,” she repeated.

Megalyn drew herself up and glowered down at Dick. “I’ve never seen this man before in my life, uh,” she glanced at Danni, “what’s your name?”

“Danneel. Danni.”

Megalyn smiled. “Danni. Come on, let’s go.” She put an arm around Danneel and began to guide her toward the stairs.

“Not so fast, Ladies,” Dick said. “That’s government property.” He lunged for the tape and grabbed at it, initiating a tug of war with Danni.   

“Let go, you asshole!” Danni cried.

Megalyn stomped on his foot with a stiletto heel and then let loose with a karate yell and a head high roundhouse kick that knocked Dick on his ass.

“Max!” Megalyn called out to the security guard who had seen what was happening and was rising to his feet. “Could you take out the trash, please?”

“Gladly,” the guard scowled down at Dick.

“He said he was called Dick,” Danni offered.

Megalyn sniggered. “Oh I’m sure he gets called that a lot. C’mon, Danni,” Megalyn led Danneel up the staircase. “Show me what you’ve brought.”

“Megalyn?” Danni said as they headed upstairs. “That was awesome! Where did you learn to fight like that?”

Megalyn grinned. “College. The African Women’s Collective ran a series of self-defense classes for members after a spate of sexual assaults that the college just didn’t want to deal with.”

“Oh,” Danni said. “Which college?”

“UCLA.”

“Jensen and I went there too. ’65 to ’68.”

“I was there ’75 to ’78.”

Danni shook her head. “Sounds like the culture on campus was still the same. I always think it’s going to get better, but it never does. Not in college and not in the community.”

“It will,” Megalyn said confidently. “I’m sure my daughter will be safe to walk the streets at night and that she’ll get equal pay. Heck, she might even be President.”

Danni shook her head. “I wish I shared your optimism.”

Megalyn opened a door into a room filled with tape decks and video montiors.

 “So how old is your daughter?” Danni asked as Megalyn put the tape in a video player.

“She’s only an abstract concept at this point. But we’re planning on a couple of kids sometime in the next few years. How about you? Do you have kids?”

Danni smiled. “I have a seven year old son.”

“You think you’ll have any more?”

“I doubt it,” Danni screwed up her nose. “I’d have to find a good man if I wanted any more.”

Megalyn frowned. “Oh. I thought…you and Jensen?”

“Me and Jensen? No. He’s…” Danni broke off. “He’s just a good friend.”

 Megalyn inclined her head, as if she understood what Danni had almost said.

She logged into a computer and brought up some sort of media-playing program.

“Do you know what’s on this tape?” Megalyn asked.

Danni nodded. “Sort of. It’s about what’s going on up there,” she nodded skywards.

Megalyn stared at her. “You mean…is Jensen Ackles the LAPD officer who’s piloting that hijacked helicopter?”

Danni licked at her lips. “Yeah,” she said. “And he’s not crazy. I don’t know _exactly_ what’s on that tape, because he wouldn’t tell me, but I do know it’s got something to do with high level corruption and attempted murder. It’s gonna be a huge story.”

“Well then,” said Megalyn. “Let’s take a look.”

And she hit the play button.


	7. Dogfight

[ ](http://s51.photobucket.com/user/zarazee71/media/Blue%20Thunder%20Art%20by%20cassiopeia7/07_dogfight_zpsclx960o4.png.html)

 Jensen watched Danni run up the front steps of the KBLA TV building. When she turned and waved he saluted casually and then turned Blue Thunder around.  He wasn’t quite sure what he should do next. Should he hang around the KBLA building and make sure nobody came for Danni? Or should he get as far away from it as possible and try to draw law enforcement to where he was?

The question was answered for him when Blue Thunder’s phone rang again.

It was Jim.

“You’ll be pleased to know that Officer Chikezie auto-rotated to ground safely and she and Observer Knowles are both fine,” Jim said. “You’ll also be pleased to hear that Officer Yazzie called off his pursuit of you after one of the SWAT team fell out his chopper,” Jim’s tone was deeply scathing. “He said there wasn’t much point them shooting at you when their bullets weren’t capable of piercing Blue Thunder’s armor, so he returned to base, with my full support.”

Jensen heard Sterling’s disgruntled voice in the background and grinned. He _was_ pleased to hear that his colleagues were okay and he told Jim as much. And then he waited for the real purpose of Jim’s call.

“It’s like Time’s Square in my office today,” Jim said after a beat. “I’ve got Mayor Williams in my office now too. He’d like a word.”

There was a brief moment of silence during which Jensen rubbed a hand over his forehead. He wanted nothing more than to tell both Jim and Steve what was going on, but with the boys from Washington still there and with no confirmation that KBLA had broadcast his tape yet, Jensen didn’t want to put anyone else in the firing line. He was already feeling sick about the danger he’d put Danneel in; he couldn’t risk anyone else.

“Jensen,” said the Mayor.

“Morning, Mr Mayor,” Jensen replied.

“Son, I’m gonna ask you very nicely, one last time, to bring that chopper in.”

“I can’t do that, Sir,” Jensen said.

“Why not?”

“I can’t tell you yet.”

When Steve spoke again, Jensen could hear the pain in his voice. “You’ve put me in a real difficult situation here, Son,” he said. “I’ve got the military pressuring me to let them send F-16s after you.”

Jensen closed his eyes. “You do what you gotta do, Steve.”

“Goddamn it!” he heard Jim yell from the background. And then his Captain was speaking directly into the phone again. “You bring that chopper in right now? Do you hear me, Jensen? They’re saying they’re gonna cut you out of the sky like a tumor. Whatever it is, Son, whatever’s going on, we can work it out. But you have to come in.”

“Take care of Danneel for me, Jim,” Jensen said. “I shouldn’t have involved her in this. She…she doesn’t know anything. She just delivered a package for me. And keep an eye on Jared too.”

“Don’t do this, Jensen,” Jim begged. “You come on in, Son.”

“Sorry, Jim,” Jensen disconnected the call. He ignored it when the phone rang again. He was done talking.    

Jensen closed his eyes momentarily and then flew toward the financial district. If they were going to send fighter jets after him, then he would play hide-and-seek with them among the city’s tallest skyscrapers.

Jensen circled past a skyscraper under construction, which had a large blue crane on top of it, and he flew past the Sumitomo Bank building. And then he turned Blue Thunder to face the direction he expected the F-16s to come at him from and hovered.

Jensen didn’t have long to wait before two F-16s came streaking toward him.

Jensen bit at his bottom lip and swore under his breath. Any minute now they would shoot a heat-seeking missile at him and those were _hard_ to avoid. The missile would home in on the heat produced by his bird and unless he could find a greater heat source to distract it, his helicopter would be blown apart.

Jensen inclined his head as a thought occurred to him and he grinned and headed out of the financial district.

Jensen caught a glint out of the corner of his eye and then he saw the tell-tale smoke-and-fire trail of an air-to-air missile.

“Shit!” he flew faster.

As soon as he was close enough to read the telephone number, Jensen dialed it.

“Kim’s Korean BBQ,” said Mr Kim’s voice.

“It’s Jensen. You need to get everybody out of your restaurant. Now.”

There was a startled gasp and then a breath. “Why?”

“It’s about to get blown up. Get out. Now.”

A moment later half a dozen staff ran from the place. Mr Kim saw Jensen hovering in the sky and stopped, frowning up at him. Jensen gestured at him to get moving, to run, and Mr Kim did just that.

Jensen waited until the missile was close and then shot upwards. The missile went after the greater heat-source, the industrial chimney of the Korean BBQ restaurant, and the whole place exploded with a fiery force that shook the ground and sent parked cars flying.

The F-16s banked hard and pulled away from the erupting fireball and Jensen flew in the opposite direction, back toward the financial district. He watched in his rear video monitor as sides of beef and whole chickens rained down from the sky, causing traffic chaos. He couldn’t help sniggering.

Mr Kim was probably pretty pissed right now, but Jensen hoped that once he calmed down, he’d realize that Jensen had just done him a favor. After all, the City was going to owe him a massive compensation payout for blowing up his restaurant.

Jensen went back to playing hide-and-seek among the skyscrapers of the financial district and waited to see what would happen next.

Below him, office workers were scurrying out of buildings and onto the street and police cruisers were blocking off roads. Buses had been commandeered to evacuate the CBD and there were fire trucks and ambulances on stand-by too.

Good. Jensen grunted approvingly. He didn’t want anyone getting hurt.

Jensen hovered and watched the evacuation, simultaneously scanning the skies for the return of the F-16s. It wasn’t long before he spotted them in the distance. He watched as they got rapidly bigger and then there was a flare of light and another missile came screaming toward him.

Jensen rounded the skyscraper that he was hovering beside and then stationed himself in the middle of four tall buildings. As the missile approached, Jensen turned the chopper around so that his exhaust was facing it and the missile tightened its course and headed straight for him. The building Jensen was facing was a 54 story skyscraper made of mirrored glass. It was owned by a major insurance company, but wasn’t yet opened for business. The bright morning sun was currently glinting off its upper windows with enough strength to start a small fire.    

As soon as the missile was close enough, Jensen flew sideways and watched with satisfaction as the missile smashed straight through the sun-bright window, sending sharp shards of glass tinkling to the ground like thousands of daggers.

Jensen scanned the ground anxiously, but the area below was clear of people.

The F-16s had already gone screaming off toward the horizon to re-group so that they could come at him again.

Jensen went and hovered over the Federal Building and waited.

Blue Thunder’s phone rang.

Jensen answered, but didn’t speak.

“You got your ears on, Son?” said Jim.

Jensen rolled his eyes and then let loose his Southern twang. “Sure have, Uncle Jesse,” he said. “Say, you know how you always used to tell me that the first casualty of war was truth? Well the first casualty of today’s War on Jensen was a barbecue restaurant. I hope y’all are feeling good about that. Then your boys took down an insurance office. You think they have insurance? Probably doesn’t matter. I’m guessing they’ll be suing the City for damages. What do you think, _Shepherd_?”

There was a lengthy silence and then Jim said, “I hear you’re sitting on top of the Federal Building.”

“Yep,” Jensen said. “Just waiting on those fighter jets to come at me again.”

“They’re not going to,” Jim said. “After that second missile SNAFU, Steve revoked their permission to engage in action over his city. He’s busy making phone calls now, doing damage control. Between you and me, I don’t think he’d be too unhappy if the Federal Building _did_ get blown up. Sterling and Heyerdahl are losing their shit. Sterling’s on the phone trying to go over the Mayor’s head and get the operation back on track. And—” Jim broke off with a sudden curse.

“What?” Jensen said. “Jim? What’s going on?”

“It’s Heyerdahl,” Jim said. “He just headed out in a military helicopter, despite being told the operation had been cancelled and being denied permission to take off. He told the tower to shove their permission, that if you wanted something done right you had to do it yourself.”

Those words had Jensen tumbling back in time. He ended the call and then sat over the Federal Building, one hand on the collective, staring straight ahead with a thousand yard stare as he relived one of his worst memories of the war:

 

 

Jensen’s camies are sticking to his back, hot and wet; and beneath his helmet, his damp hair is plastered to his scalp.  Still, it’s cooler in the air than on the ground and the mosquitoes aren’t as much of a problem up here either.

“When I get home,” says Macca, “I’m gonna ask my girl to marry me. Gonna buy her a giant fucking rock with my pay check from this ballgame we got goin’ on the side. Maybe even put down a deposit for a house.”

Heyerdahl doesn’t respond to Macca’s youthful enthusiasm and Jensen sure as shit doesn’t. Jensen tried to turn down the money the first time Heyerdahl forced him to do one of these flights; he’s only here because he is being blackmailed, after all. But Heyerdahl wouldn’t hear of it. Jensen figures the money makes him look guilty too and therefore less likely to rat on Heyerdahl. So far, he’s given every dollar and dime of the hush money to An Lac Orphanage.

“Mayday, mayday!” Jensen’s radio crackles. “…pinned down…request…air evac…”

“Ignore them,” says Heyerdahl.

Jensen glances over his shoulder. Heyerdahl is cradling his rifle and Macca is manning the rear gun. The kid meets Jensen’s eyes. He looks uneasy.

Jensen shakes his head. “Can’t do that, Chris. That’s our boys under fire. We can’t just leave them to die.”

Heyerdahl smiles, all teeth. He eyes remain as blank as always. “Sure we can,” he says.

Jensen can see the squadron now, pinned down by heavy artillery fire, just south of the Thạch Hãn River. From memory, it’s D Company and he can’t leave them.

“No,” Jensen says. “This is our _job_ ,” He banks left and heads toward the scene of the battle.

“Get back on course, Ackles,” Heyerdahl says.

Jensen shakes his head.

“D Company will be fine. There are other choppers in the area.”

Jensen maintains his current course, toward D Company

It’s a surprise when Heyerdahl hauls Macca off the gun and holds him by the throat, right on the edge of the helicopter.

“Jesus Christ,” Macca yells. “What the fuck, Chris? Let me go.”

“Get back on course, Ackles,” Heyerdahl says, “or I _will_ let him go.”

Jensen licks at his lips. Shakes his head. “C’mon, Chris,” he says softly. “Just radio your guys and tell them we can’t make the meet. Reschedule it. You—”

Macca screams. So does Jensen, a long drawn out “Nooooooo!” as Macca falls, arms out like Jesus on the cross, eyes wide, mouth open.

“Get back on course,” Heyerdahl repeats.

Jensen’s hands are shaking. “What the _fuck_?” he says. “ _Why_?”

“You wanna be next?” Heyerdahl asks.

Jensen shakes his head.

“Then get back on course.”

Jensen does it. And maybe that makes him a coward, but if he doesn’t live through this, he won’t be able to get justice for Macca.

“He was weak,” Heyerdahl moves up behind Jensen, his breath hot and moist in Jensen’s ear. “A liability. A guy like that, he doesn’t know how to keep secrets. He would’ve blabbed to someone eventually. Not like you,” Heyerdahl caresses Jensen’s cheek with the end of his gun. “You know how to keep a secret, don’t you? Your whole life is a secret. And the last thing we need is for the wrong people to find out about our little trips out to the poppy fields. Right?”

Jensen swallows. “Yeah,” he says. 

“You’re shaking,” Heyerdahl says. He sighs. “It’s so hard to get good help these days. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

Jensen listens to the comforting _throp, throp, throp_ of his rotor blades and vows to report Heyerdahl immediately, if he gets out of this alive.

 

 

Throp, throp, throp.

Jensen was hovering on top of the Federal Building. His rotor blades were spinning. And Heyerdahl was heading straight for him in a khaki army helicopter with mounted guns.

“ _Fuck_!” Jensen turned around and hit turbo boost, rocketing away from the threat posed by Heyerdahl.

Flashbacks were never pleasant and they always felt so real, as if there were happening right then, in the present. The fact that he’d had a major flashback while piloting a helicopter as potentially deadly as Blue Thunder chilled Jensen to his very core.  He was damn lucky he hadn’t started shooting up civilians.

Heyerdahl chased after him as he flew in between skyscrapers and weaved around buildings. He fired at Jensen several times, but the bullets pinged harmlessly off Blue Thunder’s armored exterior.

Eventually, Jensen lost Heyerdahl. He hovered beside a skyscraper under construction, peering in between floors to see if he could see his nemesis coming at him from the other side. Jensen switched to stealth mode and crept forward, past the edge of the building. Where was Heyerdahl? The direct approach really wasn’t his style. He was far more likely to try to coerce Jensen into surrendering by threatening somebody else.

Jensen’s stomach sank. But who could he threaten? Danneel was at KBLA and Jared was in hospital.

Jensen caught movement out of the corner of his eye just as Heyerdahl charged at him, guns blazing, from behind the big blue crane where he’d been hiding. He blew out Jensen’s side window and Jensen cried out when a bullet struck his upper arm.

“Son of a bitch!” he hurtled forward, out of Heyerdahl’s range and then flew low, skimming the tops of the trees and the fountains in the gardens and courtyards of the financial district.

Heyerdahl chased after him, the guns from his forward-mounted machine gun spraying Blue Thunder’s rear with bullets in a staccato patter that triggered another flashback.

 

                                                                                                              

Jensen is trying to take off, has been given the order. His chopper is under small arms fire; he can hear the metallic ping of bullets against the rear of his girl, and he seriously can’t take any more passengers.  The Embassy was only supposed to be a secondary evacuation point for embassy staff, but it’s been overrun with evacuees, desperate South Vietnamese people and third country nationals, frantically trying to get out before Saigon falls and the North Vietnamese march in and take over.  He already has more people crammed into the chopper than is safe, but there’s still a man trying to push his daughter into the too-crowded space.

The little girl is strung out between her father and the chopper. She’s screaming and clinging to her father who is shouting in Vietnamese, “Save my little girl. Please! Save my little girl.”

_“Take off, Lieutenant Ackles,”_ his radio crackles. “ _That’s an order_.”

“But if I take off, she’ll fall!”

There’s another barrage of gun fire; closer, louder; and people start to scream.

_“Take off! Now! Go, go, go!”_

There’s more screaming as he pulls hard on the collective and puts his bird in the sky. There’s a high pitched squeal of terror.

Jensen doesn’t look. He can’t look. There are tears streaming down his face, but his hands are steady.

 

 

Vietnam gave way to Los Angeles and Jensen wiped at his face. His right arm was throbbing, the pain sharp and clear.  He’d lost Heyerdahl though. Somehow, while he’d been lost in his flashback, he’d managed to outfly the other pilot.

\--

“ _Rough her up_?” said the voice on the tape. “ _Is that the latest euphemism for assassination_?”

Megalyn and Danni looked at each other, their eyes wide.

“Ho-ly shit,” said Megalyn. “This is dynamite!”

Danneel nodded her agreement, her eyes going straight back to the grainy infra-red footage on the news monitor.

_“…one black council woman is acceptable collateral damage_.”

Danni gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Megalyn’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, these sons of bitches are going _down_ ,” she spat.

_“I don’t want any premature attention coming to this project. Blue Thunder might be perceived as a threat if the bleeding heart liberal media get wind of it before we’ve got all the pieces arranged properly on the chessboard.”_

“Too late, Asshole,” Megalyn muttered.

Danni nodded. “No wonder Jensen was so keen to get this information out.”

The tape continued to play.

_“I think, Mr Pileggi, that I should take him out.”_

Megalyn gasped. “No _way_!” she said.

_“You mean kill him? When?”_

_“As soon as possible.”_

Danneel made a small wounded noise.

“ _Alright_. _You’ll be given all the help you need. This conversation never took place gentlemen. If it gets back to me, I’ll deny it_.”

Megalyn cackled. “Yeah, good luck with that Pileggi. You are so screwed.”

Danneel put her head in her hands. “There’s a hit out on Jensen? I can’t even…”

Megalyn put a hand on her shoulder. “Girl, you just handed me an atomic bomb. Do you know who Mitch Pileggi is?”

Danneel shook her head. “The name sounds vaguely familiar. Why? Who is he?”

“He’s the Republican candidate for the City’s 42nd District. His main campaign issues are law and order, mandatory sentencing for drug offenders, and he’s very anti multiculturalism. From the sound of it, the others in the room were a mix of police, army and probably FBI too.”

Megalyn picked up the phone and called the Director of News on the intercom. “Laurie, you need to come and hear this now. I’ve got film footage taken by the pilot of that chopper. No. He’s not a terrorist, Laurie. He’s actually the good guy in all this, so we better go easy on that ‘deranged Vietnam vet’ angle,” there was a pause and then Megalyn spoke again. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I’ve got Mitch Pileggi on tape admitting that the police have been deliberately stirring up trouble in the barrio _on his orders_ to justify bringing in this new militarized helicopter _and_ I’ve got him admitting to being involved in a deliberate hit on Councilor Loretta Devine. Apparently she found out what was going on and was planning to expose them. I’ve also got Pileggi _on tape_ approving a hit on Officer Jensen Ackles—that’s the guy in the helicopter—because he figured out what happened to Loretta Devine and why. See! He’s not deranged. He’s not the bad guy. He’s just trying to avoid being murdered. This is big, Laurie. Huge. The fallout from this…this could bring down the Governor! How soon can we get this on air?”

\--

Jensen was starting to get dizzy. The bullet was lodged in his arm, which was good because it was keeping him from bleeding out, but he was still bleeding.  And while a hot bullet might be self-sterilizing, it also hurt like a bitch.

Jensen and Heyerdahl played cat-and-mouse in-between the buildings for a good ten minutes, until Jensen was so tired and so nauseated and so sore that he thought he might crash. It was almost tempting: Except he’d promised Danneel that he would always keep fighting and, besides, he didn’t want to give that bastard Heyerdahl the satisfaction.

Heyerdahl, he was sure, regretted not killing Jensen back in ’73. He hadn’t really needed to though. When they’d got back to base from that flight where Heyerdahl tossed Macca out of the chopper, Jensen had gone in to see the base commander, only to find that Heyerdahl had beaten him to it. Heyerdahl had told the commander that Jensen had displayed cowardice in the field and refused to fly into gun fire. He’d pushed for Jensen to be court-martialed. Jensen had given his version of events and been told that it was his word against Heyerdahl’s. While Jensen was in with the commander they’d searched his locker and found a heroin injecting kit. Jensen had insisted that it wasn’t his, but the damage to his credibility had been done.

It had been his word against Heyerdahl’s back then, it had been his word against Heyerdahl’s in the parking garage the other day, and it would have been his word against Heyerdahl’s about Project THOR and the hit ordered on him if they hadn’t got it all on tape. This time Heyerdahl would damn himself with his own words; and that was something Jensen wanted to live to see.   

“All right,” he said to himself. “Gotta finish this.”

Jensen flew out to the building site where he and Jared had crashed just over a week ago. It was still taped off and closed to the builders.

Heyerdahl was still hot on his tail.

“You ready to see the impossible?” Jensen muttered. “Because I think I’m ready to show you that 360 now.” He pushed turbo boost and then pulled hard on the collective, pulling the chopper up and around in an upside down loop that took him over the top of Heyerdahl’s bird and left him behind it.

“Catch you later, Asshole,” Jensen said and opened fire with Blue Thunder’s nose cannon.

Heyerdahl’s chopper exploded and fell to the ground in a ball of fire.

Jensen watched the falling debris for a moment and tried to feel bad that he’d just killed a man. He just felt numb. And relieved that it was over. He called Jim.

“Heyerdahl crashed,” he told him.

“We’ve arrested Lehne and Sterling,” Jim said. “KBLA just broadcast that tape that you and Padalecki recorded. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried to,” Jensen said. “But I didn’t want them to know that you knew. Didn’t want to put you in danger.”

Jim _hmmed_ and Jensen imagined that he was stroking his beard, the way he did when he was thinking. “You need to bring that chopper in now, Son,” Jim said. “It’s a one of a kind, you know. A prototype.”

“Yeah,” Jensen said.

“You’ll bring it in?”

“I dunno,” Jensen said. “I’m not sure we should have this helicopter. I don’t think it’s something we should be using against our own people.”

“Jensen,” Jim said firmly. “Don’t go doing anything stupid. You bring that chopper in, Boy, you hear me?”

“I hear you,” Jensen said.

He ended the call.

Jensen flew out to the industrial side of town. It wasn’t long before he found what he was looking for; a freight train hauling iron ore and coal on the Eilber and Central private freight railroad.

He went and set Blue Thunder down on the tracks in front of the train, ignoring the train driver’s frantic sounding of the train’s horn.

Jensen climbed out of the cockpit and patted Blue Thunder’s side. “Sorry, girl,” he said. “But it’s for the best.”

He turned and walked away, down the road and back toward the city.

The explosion made him stumble. He saw the flash of fire in his peripheral vision, and felt its heat too. But Jensen kept walking, down the middle of the road, the massive fireball of destruction at his back.

Jensen had one thing and one thing only on his mind: See Jared.

\--

When the black-and-white pulled up beside him, Jensen assumed the officers inside were there to arrest him.

“Jensen,” his former partner Danay Garcia called out to him through the open window. “Stop walking. We’re here to give you a lift.”

Jensen kept walking. “To a police interview room? No thanks.”

The car pulled in front of him and stopped and Caroline Chikezie got out of the passenger seat and approached him.

“We’re not here to arrest you, Jensen,” she said. Her eyes widened when she saw the wound on his arm. “You got shot!” she said.

“Gee. You think?” Jensen snarked.

“C’mon, we gotta get you to hospital.” She reached out for him and Jensen jerked away.

Caroline held her hands up. “All right, all right. I’m not touching you.”

“Jensen,” Danay said. “Jim sent us to pick you up and take you in to see Jared.”

Jensen raised his chin and tried to keep the fear from his eyes. “Is he…?”

“He’s in intensive care. He had surgery and now he’s in intensive care. Jim says they’re hopeful. Do you want to see him?”

Jensen nodded.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Danay said soothingly. “To take you to see Jared.”

“Wouldn’t hurt for you to get that arm looked at either,” said Caroline. She opened the car’s rear door. “Come on. Get in.”

Jensen stood for a moment and then slid into the back of the police car.

“You know,” said Caroline, turning to face Jensen, “I’ve always wondered how you fit in.”

“Caroline, don’t,” said Danay.

Jensen looked from one to the other and frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Air Support. Jim’s misfits. You must’ve noticed that we’ve got more than our share of African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics and women.  Jim gathers good people who got screwed over because of who they are. Because of _what_ they are. Like Jared who’s a tall, handsome white dude—and queer as a three dollar bill. And then you had your latest series of wig outs and I thought, oh that’s it, he’s the squad’s crazy vet,” Caroline folded her arms on the top of her seat and peered at Jensen. “But that’s not it, is it?”

 Jensen swallowed. “I, uh, huh, what?”

“I think…you’re like Jared, aren’t you?”

Jensen’s face began to feel hot and numb and there was a roaring noise, like the ocean, in his ears.

“Stop the car,” he said.

“It’s okay if you are,” Caroline said. “We don’t care.”

“Danay, stop the car,” Jensen said urgently.

Danay glanced at him in the rear view mirror and then pulled over.

Jensen got out, grateful that the rear door wasn’t safety locked.

They were still in the industrial area and Jensen walked quickly to an empty lot and threw up. His head spun and he squatted in the dirt and threw up again.

A moment later he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“It really is okay,” Danay said softly. “There was a lot of talk about, you know, being gay, when Jared first turned up and most people in the division don’t care. All right, you got a few who aren’t really comfortable with the lifestyle and some people won’t want to share a cup with you anymore, just in case, but we like you Jensen. You just gotta stop wigging out in the air.”

Jensen ran a hand across his lips.

“Sorry,” he said.

Danay grinned. “Hey, you didn’t barf in the car. That wins you points. C’mon. Let’s get you to the hospital.”

Chikezie apologized to Jensen the minute he got back in the car. “My momma always says I’m too pushy; too direct,” she said.

“It’s not a bad quality to have,” Jensen replied. “But sometimes people aren’t ready to…” he sighed. “Look, I’m not really comfortable talking about this kind of stuff, but, uh,” he shook his head. “I’m really not comfortable talking about this.”

“I get it,” Caroline said.

Danay nodded. “Yeah. I just want you to know that you can trust us. We got your back, partner.”

“You’re not my partner anymore,” Jensen reminded her.

“No,” Danay grinned at him in the rear view mirror. “Jared’s your partner. Maybe in more ways than one, huh?”

Jensen put his face in his hands and Danay snorted. “Oh come on,” she said. “The two of you together? It’s hot.”

“Hell, yeah,” said Chikezie. “ _Smokin’_ hot.”

“Oh God,” Jensen muttered. “If y’all don’t shut up I’m gonna throw up again. In the car, this time.”

There was a moment of silence and then a loud peal of laughter. Jensen looked from Caroline to Danay, took in their bright, happy faces with a sense of bewildered wonder, and then shook his head.  He’d always been terrified that his co-workers would find out his deep, dark secret. This right here was his worst nightmare. And truthfully? It wasn’t so bad. For the first time in a long while he felt content and stress-free. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat and told Garcia to wake him up when they got to the hospital.

\--

Intensive care smelled of bleach and citrus. It was very white. And there were a lot of monitors and scary looking medical things around the bed.

Jared was on the bed. There was an oxygen mask over his face and some kind of monitoring clip was attached to his finger.

“Wash your hands,” the nurse gestured at the hand sanitizer.

Jensen washed his hands.

He’d lost Jared’s hoodie and the shirt he’d been wearing underneath that when they’d dealt with his bullet wound. Jensen was now wearing a hospital gown over the top of his jeans and his upper arm was tightly bandaged.

“His parents are flying in from Texas,” the nurse told him in a hushed voice. “I’m sure they’ll be pleased to hear that his partner sat with him until they could get here,” she pulled a stool on wheels across to the bed. “Take a seat, Officer Ackles. And let me know if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Jensen nodded.

She pulled the blue curtains around Jared’s bed shut and left with a smile.

Jensen wheeled the stool closer to Jared’s bed. He looked around furtively—there were gaps in the curtains after all—and then reached out tentatively and took hold of Jared’s hand; the one without the sensor clipped to it. Jared’s hand was surprisingly warm and as Jensen threaded his fingers in between Jared’s he marveled at just how big the other man’s hands were. They almost made him feel dainty in comparison. 

Jensen swallowed and looked briefly up at Jared’s face. The oxygen mask obscured his mouth and nose and Jared’s eyes were closed.

“So I hear you got hit by a car,” Jensen said. “Broke one of the fingers on your left hand; broke four ribs on the left side of your body; broke your left hip; and broke your left leg in three places,” Jensen paused in his litany of Jared’s injuries. “You hit your head and bruised your heart too.”

Jensen lowered his own head and stared again at their joined hands.

“Of course, the doctor used bigger words than that, but the nurse explained what he meant, that when the car hit you, you got blunt force trauma to your chest that bruised your heart. You actually went into cardiac arrest at one point. But, uh, anyway. You’re still here and that’s good, because…I kind of want you around Jay,” he stroked his thumb against Jared’s wrist and sat in silence for a moment, just listening to the rhythmic beat of the heart monitor.

“The doctor told me you came ‘round after the surgery,” Jensen said, “but apparently they’ve got you on a high dose of morphine for the pain, so, uh…seeing as how they’ve got you on the good stuff, I guess you’re sleeping right now,” he sighed. “When I thought I might lose you, I kind of lost my mind a little. Stole Blue Thunder. Got into an aerial battle with a couple of F-16s,” Jensen laughed quietly. “It was all a little insane. But we got ’em, Jay. Danni found the tape you hid and she got it to KBLA. Lehne and Sterling have been arrested and so have a handful of cops and FBI agents. Plus some politician; that guy who seemed to be calling the shots on the tape. Pileggi or whatever,” he paused and squeezed Jared’s hand. “This is big, Jay. They’re saying it could be bigger than Watergate, even. I’ve still gotta be formally interviewed, but Jim said I could come and spend some time with you first though,” Jensen paused again. “I’m rambling. Fuck. I promised myself I wasn’t gonna chicken out,” he sighed again. “See, the thing is Jay, I wanna give it a shot. And I know you said ‘friends with benefits’, that you’d settle for that, but, uh, I was thinking maybe, we could have a, uh, you know.”

The heart rate monitor started to beep a little faster and Jensen looked up quickly.

Jared’s eyes were open. He reached up and pulled the oxygen mask from his face.

“Think the word you’re lookin’ for is ‘relationship’,” Jared slurred.

“Yeah,” Jensen agreed.

Jared beamed.

“I’ll probably be shit at it,” Jensen warned. “But I like you. And I want to try.”

Jared’s brow pulled down. “Why are you wearing a hospital gown?” he asked.

“Oh,” Jensen rubbed at his arm. “I got shot.”

Jared’s eyebrows rose and the heart monitor began to beat even faster. “You got shot!” he said, just as the nurse came bustling in and told Jensen he was going to have to leave.

“Let him stay,” Jared looked up at the nurse with a pretty epic puppy dog expression.

“It’s okay,” Jensen said, giving Jared’s hand one final squeeze and standing up. “I gotta go see Jim anyway. I have to give a statement,” he pulled a face. “And then they want me to do a press conference. God knows why.”

“You’re a hero,” Jared said softly.

Jensen rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“You’ll come back though, won’t you?” Jared said.

Jensen nodded. “Oh yeah. You let me in, Jay,” he frowned. “Or maybe I let you in. Either way, there’s no getting rid of me now.”


	8. Epilogue

[ ](http://s51.photobucket.com/user/zarazee71/media/Blue%20Thunder%20Art%20by%20cassiopeia7/08_epilogue_zpsqhed18g9.png.html)

  _Eight months later_

 

Jensen put the green salad into the refrigerator, next to the marinating porterhouse steaks, and then turned the oven on to preheat.

He checked his watch. Jared should be home any minute.  A moment later, two yipping dogs with madly wagging tails bounded down the hallway and through the living room, jostling to beat each other to the front door.

Jensen rolled his eyes and opened the fridge again. He pulled out two Lone Star beers and used his ring to open them. The front door banged open and Jared’s booming cry of, “Honey, I’m home!” quickly morphed into coos of, “Who’s a good girl, then?” and “Aren’t you a good boy, yes you are.”

Jensen couldn’t help smiling.

He pretended to be grumpy about the dogs; and truthfully, he _had_ been pissed when Jared sprung them on him, five weeks after he moved in; but they’d grown on him, over time.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like dogs. Jensen liked dogs just fine. They’d had a chocolate brown Labrador called Chloe back home in Texas. What he _hadn’t_ liked, was the lack of discussion. Jared had simply walked in the front door one day, holding the leashes of a German shepherd mix and a mastiff cross, both a deep golden color.

“I only went to look, Jen,” he’d said, the dogs cowering behind him, nervous in the face of Jensen’s yelling. “But these guys were going to be put down tomorrow if nobody rescued them,” Jared’s eyes had filled with tears. “And I couldn’t let them die because nobody wanted them,” he’d edged closer and put a hand on Jensen’s hip. “They reminded me of us.”

Jensen had looked down into two sets of mournful brown eyes and then back up at Jared’s equally hangdog expression.

“Big decisions like this need to be discussed first,” he’d said.

“You’re right,” Jared had hung his head. “I’m sorry.”

Jensen had looked at him; looked at the dogs.

“You’re going to pick up their poop,” he’d said with a sigh. “And bath them. And walk them.”

Jensen grinned brightly as he remembered how Jared had picked him up and spun him around, getting him tangled in the dogs’ leashes, and then later—

“Hi,” Jared straightened up from where he’d been kneeling down and petting the dogs. “That for me?”

Jensen handed him one of the beers. “How was your day, Dear?” he said.

Jared leaned forward and kissed him quickly on the lips. Jensen didn’t think he’d ever get used to Jared’s constant casual affection, but at least he’d stopped jerking away from his touch when they were in the privacy of their own home. It was a different story if they were out in public.

“My day was good,” Jared said. “I wrote a couple of media releases, co-ordinated a press conference for that big drug bust over in Chino and had an interesting conversation with a Hollywood director.”

After the attempt on his life and his subsequent rehabilitation, Jared hadn’t wanted to go back to Air Support. He’d said it was because he couldn’t get up and walk around in a helicopter and sitting for too long caused his leg to stiffen up. Jensen suspected that part of it was that he didn’t want to have to hide their relationship from Jim.

Given that rogue elements in the police force and government had tried to kill Jared, the powers that be were all too happy to oblige when he said that he’d minored in English at college and would quite like to be a Media Liaison Officer. Unofficially, he was also the department’s go-to person when they needed help liaising with the ‘homophile’ community, as the Chief insisted on calling the Los Angeles gay and lesbian community, wrinkling his nose every time.

Jared was enjoying his job and he was happy. 

Jensen, meanwhile, had been suspended with full pay while the investigation into the Blue Thunder affair was taking place.

He hadn’t told Jim or Jared yet, but Jensen had already decided that he wasn’t going to go back to Air Support once everything was cleared up. If the powers that be were planning to militarize the police force, Jensen didn’t want any part of it.

He’d had some preliminary conversations with a guy who was starting up a non-profit, public-benefit corporation called Calstar—California Shock Trauma Air Rescue. Calstar was going to provide air ambulance services to California and northern Nevada and they were looking for pilots. Jensen had thought long and hard about it and decided that he’d rather be a medevac pilot than operate a helicopter gunship against American citizens. So the whole ‘working together’ thing wouldn’t have been an issue anyway.

Jared and Jensen had migrated to the sofa now, and were sitting side by side with the dogs at their feet.

“Does this director guy want you to consult on some new cop show?” Jensen asked.

“Not exactly,” Jared picked at the label on his beer bottle.

Jensen raised an eyebrow.

“The guy that made _Saturday Night Fever_ wants to make a movie about the Blue Thunder affair,” Jared said after a long pause.

“No way,” Jensen said instantly. The thought of his entire life being on display for the world at large to see was almost enough to trigger a full-blown panic attack.

“He said he’d change everyone’s names,” Jared said. “And the guys playing you and me would just be friends. And straight.”

Jensen raised an eyebrow. “And you’re okay with getting straight-washed?”

Jared shrugged. “Not really. But I figured it would keep the real us more distanced from these characters and I thought maybe you’d like that. The director said he’d make the Danni character your girlfriend.”

Jensen groaned. “Oh God. She’ll be insufferable if somebody bases a movie character on her,” he frowned. “Well, I guess if it’s just loosely based on us and uses different names and so on, there’s not much we can do to stop it anyway,” he rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think it’d make a very good movie, though.”

Jared’s mouth fell open. “Are you kidding? Dude…you battled fighter jets over the skies of LA. You outwitted corrupt government officials who ordered your death. And all so you could bring the people the truth about the government’s nefarious plot. It’s classic Hollywood! It’s just _begging_ to be made into a movie.”

Jensen pulled a face. “You make it sound so heroic,” he grumbled.

Jared put a hand on Jensen’s thigh and leaned in close. “You _were_ heroic,” he slid his hand up Jensen’s thigh and rested it on his hip. “And I seriously doubt they’ll be able to find a leading man as sexy as you,” he added, his voice husky and his pupils dark.

“That guy who was in Mad Max?” Jensen suggested. “He’s hot. Or Harrison Ford?”

“Not as hot as you,” Jared said. “Neither of them.”

“Who would play you?”

Jared inclined his head. “Dunno. Don’t care. Not even sure it’ll go ahead.” He ran a hand over the growing bulge in Jensen’s jeans and Jensen squirmed appreciatively.

“You wanna?” Jared asked.

The answer to that question was always yes.

Until he’d met Jared, Jensen hadn’t had much of a sex life. Mostly he’d made do with his right hand and the sparkly pink dildo that he’d told the guy at The Pleasure Chest was a gag gift for a buddy who was getting married. Rarely, he would work up the courage to go out and let someone else make him feel good. More often, he would work up the courage to go out and let someone else use him. He could admit now that it hadn’t been healthy.

Being with Jared was just so different. For a start, Jensen was never drunk or sedated when he had sex with Jared and sober sex was a revelation. Also, Jared made it all seem so _natural_ and non-controversial. Jensen had stopped feeling guilty about the fact that he liked getting his dick sucked by another man and he’d almost stopped feeling embarrassed about the fact that he loved getting fucked. He’d also discovered that the sparkly pink dildo was a lot more fun when Jared was the one wielding it; although he did have a tendency to refer to it as ‘Mr Sparkles’, which made Jensen face-palm every time. Jensen had never laughed during a sexual encounter before he met Jared. He’d never laughed as much, period, as he’d done since Jared had moved in with him.

Jared was loving and giving. He was funny, gregarious, outspoken and full of life. And sometimes he exhausted himself and fell into a dark hole of depression. It had only happened once during the time they’d been together, but Jared had confessed that he’d been prone to periodic bouts of depression all his adult life.

“My mama says I expect too much of myself,” Jared had told him. “That I want to be everything for everyone and sometimes I forget to leave enough energy for me.”

Up until that point, Jensen had been feeling that Jared had gotten the short straw, relationship-wise. Jensen had nightmares, flashbacks and panic attacks. He was still uneasy about emotional intimacy and sometimes (sometimes) he freaked out if Jared insisted on ‘making love’ to him rather than just fucking. Seeing the most amazing man in the world struggling to cope, and being there for him to lean on, made Jensen feel as if he were pulling his weight in the relationship.

“Jen?” Jared was looking at Jensen quizzically.

Jensen thrust up against Jared’s hand. “Do you really need to ask?”

“Yes,” Jared nodded. “I’m a big fan of enthusiastic consent.”

Jensen straddled Jared’s lap and ground down against him. “Is this enthusiastic enough for you?”

Jared furrowed his brow in an exaggerated expression of consideration.  “I’ve seen you more enthusiastic.”

“You probably had my dick down your throat. I’m usually pretty enthusiastic about that.”

Jensen leaned forward and pressed his lips against Jared’s.  They kissed softly, gentle and unhurried, the way Jared liked it. Jensen felt Jared’s hands at the button of his jeans, undoing them, making room for Jared to get his hands down the back of Jensen’s pants. He took an ass cheek in each hand, squeezing and kneading, spreading Jensen’s cheeks and then pushing them together. Jensen tangled his fingers in Jared’s hair and deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue into Jared’s mouth and grinding against him.

Jensen felt a wet nose against his big toe and pulled back, glaring at Harley. “Bedroom,” he said to Jared.

Jared gripped Jensen’s ass tight and then rolled up onto his feet.

Jensen yelped and wrapped his legs around Jared’s waist so that he wouldn’t fall. “Put me down you fucker!”

“Nope,” Jared said, his grinning face uncomfortably close to Jensen’s. “You’re my pretty, pretty princess and I shall carry you to our chambers and ravish you.”

Jensen’s eyes narrowed. “Asshole,” he poked Jared in the ribs before dropping his head to Jared’s shoulder and submitting to being carried toward the bedroom. “You’ve been reading cheesy romances again, haven’t you?”

Jared threw him down on the bed and Jensen’s cock throbbed in eager anticipation. He yanked down his jeans and shorts and Jared grabbed hold of them and pulled them off him completely, throwing them down on the ground.

Jensen grabbed hold of his cock and began to stroke it. Spread-eagled on the bed, he looked up at Jared with lust-filled eyes and licked at his lips. “Well?” he said. “Are you just gonna stand there? Because I believe I was promised some ravishing.”

Jensen watched as goofy Jared morphed into predatory Jared. He stripped with ruthless efficiency and then crawled in between Jensen’s spread legs.

“Arms above your head,” Jared said and Jensen whined low, deep in his throat, as he obeyed. There were no words for how much it turned him on when Jared took control like this.

Jared pushed his legs back over his shoulders and Jensen flushed, as he always did when he knew that he was on full display for Jared.

“Just look at that pretty pink hole,” Jared said.

“I showered and so on this afternoon,” Jensen said.

“Good,” Jared pulled Jensen’s ass cheeks apart and got his tongue in there.

Jensen was lying horizontally across the bed, just exactly where he’d been thrown. As soon as he felt the hot, wet tip of Jared’s tongue begin to probe at his hole he groaned and reached sideways for a pillow, pulling it into position above his head so that he could squeeze it tightly.

Jared’s tongue began to thrust and curl inside of him and Jensen practically arched off the bed. Jared pulled him back down by the hips and held him in place, eating him out thoroughly, and then sitting back and reaching into the bedside drawer for the lube and condoms.  He threw a wrapped condom onto the bed and squeezed a liberal amount of lube onto his fingers, bringing them down to Jensen’s hole and pushing them inside.

Jensen was already wet and relaxed from the ministrations of Jared’s tongue, but it hadn’t stretched him very much and Jared’s fingers were big.  Jensen certainly felt the stretch and burn as Jared’s fingers opened him up, but he was so turned on that it just felt good and he couldn’t help pushing down against the fingers and trying to get them deeper, faster.  Jared chuckled and obliged him, adding more lube and another finger and finger fucking him hard and deep, eliciting a series of needy, breathy moans from Jensen that he’d be embarrassed about if he wasn’t out of his mind with pleasure.

“Stop teasing,” he eventually managed to say through gritted teeth, “and fuck me already!”

“So pushy,” Jared said, voice light and lilting. But he pulled his fingers out and told Jensen to roll over.

Jensen got on his hands and knees, chest down on the bed, face buried in the pillow. Jared pulled at his hips, spreading his legs wider and raising his ass higher, before spreading his cheeks apart and resting the condom-clad tip of his dick against Jensen’s stretched wet hole.

Jensen was tempted to push back, but he knew from experience that when Jared was in this mood, all that would do was earn him a hard slap on the ass.

Besides, he knew what Jared wanted.

“C’mon, Jay,” he begged. “Quit pussying around and put it in me. Need you to fuck me, need—” the sentence turned into a long, drawn out moan as Jared sank into him, stretching and filling him with one relentless slide forward.

Jared began to thrust. “That what you wanted, Jen?” he panted.

“Oh yeah,” Jensen thought about reaching for his dick, but he was pretty sure he was going to come the moment he touched it and he wasn’t quite ready for this to be over when it had only just started. His mouth was open in a constant O of pleasure and breathy gasps punched out of him every time Jared thrust in deep. 

“That’s it, Jay. Right there. Right _there_. Oh fuck!”

“You gonna come?” Jared said. “I’m gonna come. I’m just holding off for you.”

Jensen grabbed his dick and began to fist it in time with Jared’s thrusts. It only took a few pumps and he was coming, his ass squeezing Jared and triggering his orgasm too.

“Kleenex!” Jensen demanded as Jared pulled out. Jared threw the box at him.

“Gross,” Jensen wiped his hands and then stared in dismay at the quilt cover. “I hate when we forget to put a towel down.”

Jared disappeared from the bedroom and came back a moment later with a wash cloth, which he used to scrub at the quilt.

Jensen knelt at the edge of the bed and watched him dubiously.

“We should change the sheets,” he said.

Jared rolled his eyes. “Go and have a shower. This’ll be dry by the time we go to bed.”

“Okay,” Jensen paused at the door and looked back over his shoulder at Jared. “You can join me if you want.”

When Jensen had gone, Jared took a moment to sit down on the bed and reflect on his good fortune. He loved his job, he got absolutely zero grief from his colleagues, he’d made some great friends, he had a house with a yard and two wonderful dogs, and best of all he had the most amazing boyfriend ever. Not that he was allowed to call Jensen his ‘boyfriend’. Jensen said he was too old to be anyone’s boyfriend. Mostly Jared just referred to him by name. The people who really mattered knew that to Jared, _Jensen_ meant _the other half of my soul_.  And they knew that to Jensen, _Jared_ meant the same thing.

Jared pulled on some track pants and went out to the hall. He gathered up the stuff he’d dumped earlier when he’d knelt down to pet the dogs and put his boots and shoes in the cupboard, before taking his work satchel and the big Radio Shack plastic bag back into the bedroom with him. He hid the bag in the back of the closet. Even if Jensen saw the bag, he probably wouldn’t be too suspicious because Jared was a tech geek and he bought a lot of stuff from Radio Shack. Jared hoped he wouldn’t look in this bag though. It contained Jensen’s Christmas present; a remote controlled model of a combat helicopter that looked very similar to Blue Thunder.

Jensen was still miserable about the fact that he’d destroyed the Blue Thunder prototype; could get quite teary about it after a few bourbons; so Jared hoped that the model would be some kind of commiseration. Also, from the few things that Jensen had said, Jared didn’t think he was going to go back to Air Support, once he’d been cleared of any wrong doing (and he would be), so perhaps a model was the closest Jensen would be getting to a chopper for a while.

With the Christmas gift safely hidden away, Jared shed his track pants and went to join Jensen in the shower.  When he’d joined Air Support eight months ago, Jared hadn’t dared to believe that he could be happy and content. But here he was, opening the shower door to reveal a very naked Jensen, water cascading over his beautiful broad shoulders, back and ass. Jared stepped in behind Jensen and wrapped his arms around him, and Jensen turned in his arms and smiled. Life was good. 

_The End_   

 

Thank you for reading! I hope you've enjoyed the story. Please let me know if you did. :D

**Author's Note:**

> **THANK-YOUS**
> 
> A HUGE thank you to cassiopeia7 for sharing _Blue Thunder_ with me. Her truly amazing art post can be found [HERE](http://cassiopeia7.livejournal.com/558102.html). Please go and shower Deb with love and praise--her art is magnificent!   
>  Thank you, Deb, for being such an enthusiastic collaborative partner and not only being excited about the story, but also producing the most amazing art. Thank you for being my technical guru for all things helicopter and flight-related as well.
> 
> Thanks also to dear_tiger for kindly answering some of my medical questions. Hopefully my Hollywood-handwavy-medicine is a little more accurate thanks to her answers! Any remaining medical errors are totally my fault.
> 
> My eternal gratitude to 9tiptoes for taking time out from her seriously busy schedule to beta read this story for me. Love you T.
> 
> And a final thank you to the spn_cinema mods, without whom this J2 movie-fest wouldn't happen.


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